Sanandajinima Interactive
Sanandajinima Interactive
Sanandajinima Interactive
LIBRARY
Cl. No.
Ac Na
DEUfl IJMVER
H8
^ UBRAllY
(•F()K(>L M
DIMIIHOV ^tirt tar\ (>i m laf ol itir Jtiit rnational Pt Lnion
former editor oi Plaeine a daiK puldislif d m SoBa, fi>rmpr deput> of thp
Bulgarian Parhamtni
NK HOT AS DOMAN formpij>, (oHegp ol WilJiain and Mary and Aist Prompt uteir
l)( [on till inti rnational ^ldIta^> Irihiinal at Nuiembirg
'^IMMllN NAhT foiimiK 11* ul >1 !*« Iv i^iaiili Dipl ol tlu Ofin e ol Inter
Aiiuru in Allans New Vurk
MW NOMAI) New Vmk New N iuMtl to '^oi nl Ht^tanli
( I NIill 1{ JO niAN iiitlifo el i amptf* / owowo ^ irui ///t Mxth tif J 7orn/
1 KILDUU 11 'sTAMPMH iiitnur im iiibei *>| tin lb u li^iap, iiu) I nine i 1 diiee
MIAs lARTAK feeiiiurK ( mncll lrii\<rMt\ inel Mil. ill lnt\ersif\ it pre-ent
Ni w Nliool toi Sot I il Rise licit
VJ VDIMIK /LN/INO\ loniu r Mcinlict ol thi Russian (oustiiiunt \s-.e lubb and
Me mix Russian PioMsumtl (re»vi iiuiu
r ed id it pit sent Lditeer of /i SvoIhmIh
R ussian weekly jniblislu d in Niw \ork
V
Great European conflicts are not purely economic, but are con-
of ideas, as well. They have brought that continent to a point
flicts
Vll
PREFACE
hope is that this volume will fill this need. Obviously, there is
a mountain of literature upon all these topics, all of which is well-
known to specialints, but the need for a survey -approach to these
ideologies was apparent from the start.
However, limitations of space forced us to select certain rep-
a good many shortcomings and, most certainly, those which are in-
herent in all anthologies.
Some more space for their contributions than
authors utilized
was originally intended. Mere editorial cutting was insufficient t»)
atljust the technical problem of lineage to the importance of the
topic. Since further shearing would have utterly destroyed the
entire structure of the article, in some cases, we were forced to
let it remain.
Every autht>r, it should be noted, represents his own personal
point of view which is not necessarily shared by either his co-
author or the editor. Moreover, the reader will discover conflict-
ing views emanating from two or more contributors. It should
be rernernbered that it was not the intention of the editor to stan-
vili
PREFACE
ing views of social scientists, all of whom have a democratic
background. This explains, e.g., the different viewpoints ex-
pressed by Professor Borgese and Mr. Naft, on the one hand, and
by Professor Mendizabal, on the other, in their treatments of
Catholicism and politics; the differences between Mr. Rocker’s
and Mr. Nomad’s articles on the problems of Anarchism between ;
IX
C^onientd
PAOE
Preface vii
Chapter:
Peasant Movement)
Ru.s.sian Vladimir Zenzinov •153
XI
5.
CONTENTS —Continued
PAbE
The Fpilogue
XU
ti^Juctlon
and dividing them one from another. On the other level they are
used by the men of power, who to win their ends must possess
one art above all others, the manipulative ait of the propagandist.
Thus myths are converted into the techniques of control, as the
editor amply reveals in the introductory chapter.
.Accordingly, no area of knowledge has greater significance to-
da> than that which explores the idea-sv '•terns of our age. What
we shall do with whole apparatus vie call civilization, what
this
goals it shall serve, whether if shall be a means of liberation or
core.
the spirit, from the gross tyrannies of power or from the limits
of cramping conditions. Back of all the Machiavellian manipula-
tion of these movements by selfish interests and opportimist
leaders there lies the eternal quest, however ill directed, for a
better life in a better world. It would be the worst of ironies if
that quest, because of the conflicts of ideologies through which
it seeks expression, should be self-destroying.
No one can read this book without a widened understanding of
the forces that are stirring and changing this distracted age. Not
only will he gain a new perspective of the movements that impinge
on us from without, he will also be in a better position to face the
issues that confront us at home — in short, if he reads attentively
he will be a better citizen.
Kobkkt M. MacIvkr
XV
The Mechanics of
European Politics
I.
Feliks Gross
3
6 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
closely connected with the underlying philosophy. Such well-
developed methods as Marxism aid in analyzing a current, con-
crete historical situation, and build a logical political program as
a consequence of this broad analysis. A political program, then,
is merely the outgrowth of a wide, detailed ideology, such as
socialism or communism, or a less elaborate one, such as nation-
alist or peasant movements. The program is a formulation of im-
8 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
tegrated plans of social and political change.
Great political ideologies, political visions, and social myths,
which effectivelymove masses of people are a European, urban
phenomenon. None of the predominant political ideologies and
social myths have been formulated outside of Europe. Great
political ideologies are as much a European characteristic as sym-
phonic music; no high-ranking composers of either have been
born elsewhere.
Democracy, socialism, anarchism, communism, nationalism,
French Jacobinism, radical agrarian ideologies and Zionism
all these originated in Europe. Just as Buddhism, Christianity,
Judaism, Islam, and all great world religions were born in Asia
and the eastern Mediterranean, so were all great political ideol-
lated into the reality of stone and concrete and organized inU)
a harmonious entity.
of real significance.
A political is often a minimum, actual proposition
program
a practical outline of demands for change, for immediate action,
or for the maintenance of a status quo. A political program de-
termines political tactics; the sum total of an ideology determines
the great political strategy.
Klausevitz^ defines tactics as the use of armed forces in en-
object of the war. Hence, political tactics denote the use of politi-
viously only a tactical move. The agreement did not in the least
signify that the great strategy of. conquest of eastern Europe had
1 Karl von Klausevilz, On War, Chapter I, “Branoliea of the Art of War,” p. 62,
Modern Library Ed.
12 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
been abandoned, nor that Nazi ideology concerning eastern Euro-
pean problems had been altered. The political objective remained
unchanged: first, the conquest of eastern Europe, and then of the
world. Detailed strategy was outlined. The road to domination
of Eastern Europe led through the conquest of Austria and Czecho-
slovakia. Then, there would be time to capture Poland.
Therefore, the agreement with Poland was merely a tactical move
devised to secure peace at the eastern border while conquests in
the south continued. Many Poles who considered this an ideol-
ogical change were proved wrong; Hitler merely enhanced his
position for an attack upon Poland and Russia; political strategy
and tactics, thus, were closely interwoven with military strategy.
Modem history reveals that political strategy and conquest tac-
tics are often combined with military strategy.
Inexperienced people often regard tactical moves as ideolo-
gical changes.. However, it is often very difficult to distinguish a
tactical or strategical change from an ideological one.
When the United States and Canadian Communist Parties pro-
claimed their support of the free enterprise system, during World
War was actually only a tactical change. After the Allies
II, it
took the lead and the enemy was finally defeated, Earl Browder
was expelled from the Communist Party and its tactics changed
again. But its ideology remained wholly unchanged, despite the
dozens of books written by naive observers who happily asserted
thatit had been transformed.
things with stronger oaths, and no man observed them less; how-
ever, he always succeeded in deceptions, as he well knew this as-
pect of things.”®
Modern totalitarian tacticians utilize this identical Machiavel-
lian device and are often successful for a long period of time,
before final defeat overtakes them. They deceive with oaths and
promise that, due to a complete change of heart and mind, they
have abandoned their obje<‘tives and revised their ideology.
Shortly after, what the iia’ive hailed and the pro])agaiidists pub-
licized as a permanent, ide<jlugical change, proves to be merely
a transient tactical retreat in preparation for a .stronger attack.
It should be noted that programs and tactics may change, too,
as a consequence of ideological development; such changes are of
a more durable character and may represent a decisive change in
the entire policy. In democratic parties the true nature of such
changes is not a matter for secrecy and deceit.
When either a political party or a nation is forced to adjust her
- The Prince, Chapter XVIII, ‘‘In What W'ay I’rinces Must Keep Faith,” p. 65,
Modem Library Ed.
14 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
policy to an attack by a totalitarian movement, the analysis of tac-
tics and program, of ideology or strategy is of foremost impor-
Table 2
POLITICAL STRATEGY AND TACTICS
the weaker and bad means exploit the weaker. Perversely, Nazism,
beside being anti -ethical, is anti-uiiiversalist and anti-equalitarian.
The Nazi system of values extols the virtues of exploiting and
eliminating the weaker.
The Communist system of values differs from the democratic in
set of values: its means are often unethical. The conflicts between
the ends and the means, and between the system of values and the
practical policy which repudiates it, defeats the entire ideology.
Instead of becoming increasingly libertarian. Communism is
important idee force, as Fouille would have termed it. Such great
scholars and philosophers, economists and social scientists as
Marx, Engels, Owen, Fourier, Saint-Simon, Proudhon, Blanc,
Blanqui, Robertus, Bakunin, and Kropotkin, whose writings
changed whole ways of thinking, devoted their entire lives to the
bowing low, cap in hand, when the landlord’s carriage passed him
on the highway. He still addressed him as “Excellent Lord,” and
the latter condescendingly used “Thou” to him.
But the peasants were not liberated by their own efforts.
Industrial development — the rise of capitalism, in particular
and the need for more factory workers all favored emancipation.
The real pressure came from radical circles in the cities. True,
peasant uprisings occurred, but they did not breed and foster per-
manent, political peasant movements for liberation. The insur-
gents were cruelly punished, and the movements died abortively.
Only misty traditions and beautiful peasant songs remained to
perpetuate the memory of these hero-martyrs.
Eastern European
serfs did not gain freedom from their own struggles for liberty.
Even after their emancipation, a socially feudal relationship be-
tween the peasantry and the gentry existed for decades. However,
when the younger generation came of age in the twentieth cen-
)
20 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
tury, peasantry became more aggressively dynamic in its battle
i'or political rights.
The young class, were in-
industrial workers, although a new,
fluenced by the older patterns and traditions of the artisans,
guilds, and crafts. European craftsmen were free men, and they
knew how to fight and defend their cherished freedom in the
streets of the medieval cities. Some industries, such as masonry
and salt mining, remained almost unchanged after the industrial
revolution; new inventions did not make as substantial a change
in production conditions in these industries as they did in textiles
or steel. In the former, the workers preserved their old organiza-
tion and old traditions, and their memories of freedom and in-
dependence, thus influencing other industrial workers.
These are some of the differences between the peasants and the
workers in Europe; another essential variation was in their social
psychology. Although renouncing their former passive role, after
World War I, eastern European peasants were still slower to act
than the workers, who frequently struck for political, as well us
economic, reasons. The peasants, never “trigger-happy,” were
slow, difficult to move and, through the experience of long cent-
uries, politically suspicious of chicanery and exploitation. But,
once roused, it was difficult to was dem-
stop the avalanche. (This
onstrated by the peasant strikes and resistance in eastern Europe.
The deeply religious peasants hoped for paradise in Heaven, but
never dreamed of attaining it on earth. Disinterested in social
Utopias and perfectionist plans, they searched for an es-
sential political freedom. community that signi-
In the village
fied, above all, freedom from annoyance by the village policeman
often not correct in their assumptions. But the peasant was com-
pletely correct in his judgment that the lot of the common man,
imfortunately, was seldom the primary interest of the “higher
ups,” particularly in times of dictatorial rule. Still, he remained
patient, and this very patience of the peasant became as pro-
verbial as his stubbornness.
European workers, on the other hand, had imagination and
alertness. Although concrete and practical in their struggle for
an eight-hour working day, higher wages, and social security, they
still dreamed of an entirely new world free from economic ex-
aware that part of the workers joined the Nazi movement, too.
This fact is often discarded in favor of pure theory and simplifica-
tion. However, although Fascism and Nazism had a limited fol-
lowing among the working classes, the middle class and the “in-
telligentsia” formed a majority or, at the least, a significant, lead-
ing, large group of its membership.
In a certain sense,Nazism and Fascism were counter-revolu-
middle class and the “intelligentsia,” still employing
tions of the
the European meaning of this word. Fascist movements, too, at-
tracted large numbers of dissatisfied war veterans. All over Eu-
rope the frontsoldaten flocked to Fascist and Nazi movements, as
former officers and non-commissioned officers have always played
24 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
an important role in all totalitarian movements. Soldiers who
spent their youth fighting were often unable to complete their
studies; those who remained civilians often were in a more ad-
vantageous position in commercial and business competition, since
they had had the benefits of longer education and training. De-
mobilized officers and petty officers, particularly, were embittered
and disappointed with civilian life and their relatively unimpor-
tant roles as civilians. They lacked any G. I. Bill of Rights to
tween 1882 and 1885 the number of workers grew 62% in Ger-
controls the most crucial elements in her social life: the govern-
ment, the courts, schools, economic life, industry, and public
opinion.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the political and social
new class were pointed out by the Polish revo-
potentialities of this
lutionist, Waclaw Machajski, who wrote mainly in Russian. In
side tbe point a little to note that Machajski was either unable or
unwilling to draw the final consequence from his own theory; he
assumed that only a gradual transition from capitalism to collec-
tivism would lead to this new class rule, while the violent anti-
capitalist rebellion, which he advocated, would, by its own mo-
mentum, lead to the equalization of incomes and, thus, to the es-
their ideals and principles; and very often these were intensely
high ethical principles and values which inspired them in their
political struggles, encouraged them to sacrifice their personal
happiness, liberty, and sometimes even their lives for what they
believed was social or political justice or truth.
Machajski has obviously forgotten that thousands from this
class devoted their entire lives to the cause of justice; they were
guided by great ideals, rather than by personal greed and inter-
est.
finite but limited rights and powers that check and balance one
another in democratic functional cooperation.”
Successful cooperation between industrial labor, peasantry and
and “intelligentsia” forms the
the “managerial class,” technicians
crucial problem of our future economic and political democratic
order. It is one of the essential conditions of democratic progress.
''
George Plechanov, Essays in Historical Materialism, Eng. Ed., International Pub-
lishers, New York, N. Y., 1940.
**
Antonio Labriola, Socialism and Philosophy, Eng. Ed.. Chicago, Charles H. Kerr
& Co.. 1934.
,
30 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
mer is merely a variety of idealism. He grants the influence of
economic changes over ideological trends, but states, in turn, that
to our motorized age. Only a few years ago Indians in full regalia
danced their traditional dances for the Holy Virgin on this very
appeared, but some of its rituals remained and filtered into the
new religion. The Indians now danced for the Holy Virgin; their
descendants have forgotten the old goddess, but the dance re-
mains.
About 1531, when Juan Diego, the simple Indian first saw
the Holy Virgin on Tepeyae. Hill and listened to the celestial
music, Mexico undoubtedly had some wise and intelligent Catholic
clergy. They understood the attachment of the Indians to Tenant-
EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
zin, and realized the social functions of the rituals were deeply-
rooted in the Mexicans* souls. Rituals are an essential part of
every culture; it is difficult somewhat
to perpetuate religion in a
primitive group without the aid of rituals They and
serve cults.
cial science. They hoped probably, that once Christianity was ac-
cepted, the old pagan beliefs could no longer harm the great
teachings of the Old and New Testament, that the ritual was only
a matter of form which helped to express religious feelings, while
the content had already changed.
Former sites of heathen worship were chosen for Catholic
shrines; pagan holidays were replaced by Catholic holidays; na-
tive gods gave way to Catholic Saints; and pagan rituals, if they
survived despite the interdictions and repressions of the church
—or if they survived because they were tolerated — perpetuated
10 E. Durkheiiti, Les Formes ElementaUes de la Vie Religieuse, Paris, Alcan, 1912,
pp. 60-65.
11 William C. Sumner, Folkways, Ginn Co., Boston, 1940, p. 60 and seq.
THE MECHANICS OF EUROPEAN POLITICS 37
political phenomena are not only economic and social, hut strongly
emotional, as well. However, political movements may be con-
trolled by reason and moral principles, to a greater or lesser de-
gree. For example, the striking, pretentious emotionalism of
symbolism and ritualism did not appeal to the Englishman’s im-
agination. English political movements were sober and far more
rationalistic than continental. Though an efficient democratic
system requires that politics be controlled by moral principles
and reason rather than be subject to sudden rushes of human
emotion, it would be unfair to entirely exclude emotions as a use-
ful political factor. Imagination is an element of moral feeling;
strong imagination is often justified and causes, in turn, great
this terrorism.
their originators.
It is as difficult to prophecy the precise form in which our ideas
will materialize as it is for parents to sketch a likeness of their
future progeny. Even the loftiest and most ethical idea is capable
of producing a nightmare against its producer’s will. Would either
Editorial Note
classes will have equal chances for political control and demo-
cratic rule in a state-controlled economy, or whether one class will
establish a despotic rule over all the others.
49
II.
COMMUNISM
by
Max Nomad
by the names of Lenin and Stalin, the term Communism had be^
50
COMMUNISM 51
During the second half of the nineteenth century, with the So-
cialist (or “Social-Democratic”) parties in control of the labor
movement on the European continent, the word “communism” was
relegated to the museum of historico-linguistic antiquities, if we
disregard the revival of its use by the followers of Peter Kropot-
kin, who applied the adjective “communist” to their brand of
anarchism. Marx and Engels alone insisted upon calling them-
selves “Communists” —apparently as a gesture of radical anti-
capitalist defiance.
52 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
At first all sections of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers
Party were in full agreement as to the character the hoped-for
Revolution was to assume. It was to give power to the middle
class parties, including the representatives of the peasantry; the
Social-Democratic leaders of the working class were to constitute
the law-abiding opposition, following the example of the Social-
Democratic, Socialist or Labor parties of the democratic Western
European countries.
Soon after the turn of the century, however, the harmony among
the Russian Marxists was disturbed by the ideas put forward by
the dynamic personality of Lenin. These ideas concerned primar-
ily the organizational nature of the party and only later came to
be applied to the very character of the Revolution itself.
With this object in view Lenin insisted upon the greatest pos-
sible extension of the powers given to the Central Committee of
the party, which was to direct all the revolutionary activities.
These powers were to include that of confirming the personnel of
the local committees and even of nominating their members. These
proposals met with the strongest opposition on the part of most
of the old-time militants of Russian Marxism. Instead of a move-
ment based on mass support, they asserted, Lenin wanted an or-
—
COMMUNISM 53
ponents at that time was also Leon Trotsky, who admitted no ne-
own efforts, the working class can develop only a trade-union con-
sciousness — that is, the realization of tiie need of getting together
51 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
i» unions in order to fight employers and to demand from the gov-
ernment the passing of laws necessary for the workers.”
As against this inability of the masses to overcome, by their
own efforts, their subordination to “bourgeois ideology” (i.e., the
acceptance of the legitimily of the existing system), Lenin em-
phasizes the fact that “the theory of socialism grew out of the
philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated
by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the in-
The vehicles of science are not the proletariat but the bourgeois
was out of the heads of
intelligentsia [italics in the original]: It
the members of this stratum that modern socialism originated,
and it was they who communicated it to the more intellectually
developed proletarians who, in their turn, introduced it into the
proletarian class struggle where conditions allow that to be done.
Thus socialist consciousness is something introduced into the pro-
letarian class struggle from without and not something that arose
within it spontaneously.”
It is beside the point here whether this view of the non-work-
ing-class origin of socialism was in keeping with the original con-
cepts of Marxism; or whether Kautsky advanced this view merely
in order to put in their place those trade union leaders within the
social-democratic movement who, in their rivalry with the college-
bred leaders, occasionally tried to prejudice the masses against
COMMUNISM 55
56 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
whose ambitions did not go beyond the laurels of a parliamentary
career or of a cabinet post within the capitalist system, on the
other.
The unsuccessful Russian Revolution of 1905 deepened the
original split by extending it from the field of mere organiza-
tion to that of tactical methods. As the upheaval approached
the disastrous war with Japan had brought the downfall of the
hated regime within the sphere of imminent probabilities — ^the
heaval, and from there spreading over Western Europe. This was
something new in the European socialism of that time —when “so-
cial revolution” had become a mere liturgical phrase and the real-
ization of the “final aim” was visualized as a gradual transition to
a democratic system of government ownership.
Lenin’s views on the character of the Russian Revolution to
come, as recorded in his writings since 1905, underwent many
SB EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
changes and eventually became practically identical with those of
Trotsky. In his Permanent Revolution, a pamphlet written after his
fall from power in the late twenties, Trotsky boils down the dif-
By the end of February 1917 the Tsarist system broke doAvn un-
der the blows of the German military machine. The war-weary sol-
diers stationed in Petrograd made common cause with the hungry
protesting masses. No revolutionary party could claim exclusive
credit for bringing about the liquidation of the hated regime. Dur-
ing eight months —
between March and November 1917 the coun- —
try was ruled by a provisional government. It was a coalition of
progressive middle class and moderate socialist parties among
which the Social-Revolutionarie.s, the representatives of the Rus-
sian peasantry, were the most influential element.
COMMUNISM
In November of the same year, the followers of Lenin, who
had been joined by Trotsky, taking advantage of the war- wear ine-s
of the soldiers and of the land-hunger of the peasants, staged a suc-
cessful coup against the Provisional Government. The Communists
have been in power ever since.
comply with their demands. As a result, they simply drove out the
owners and occupied the factories. The Soviet Government, depen-
dent as it was upon the support of the laboring masses, could not
afford to lose face as a “proletarian regime” by restoring these
plants to their legal owners. It therefore had no choice but to take
them over. (Particularly as the workers themselves were not in a
position to run those enterprises by their own efforts). In other
cases factories were taken over to protect them against sabotage
by their owners while the country was in the throes of civil war.
There were also numerous instances where the plants were seized
by the Government in order to prevent their being sold to German
capital after the German-Soviet peace treaty of 1918. Thus the
Bolsheviks did not seize power in order to establish a system of
government ownership. Rather they consented to the dispossession
of the capitalists and to the establishment of government owner-
ship in order to keep power.
—
60 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
The nationalization of industries was accompanied by a system
of forcible seizures of foodstuffs from the peasantry. The cities
sumers goods. That system was maintained for about seven years
— until 1928. At that time Stalin and his faction, having won in
the struggle for power against the party elements opposing his per-
sonal ascendancy, adopted the program of his defeated opponents.
The result was a policy of large-scale industrialization and agri-
cultural collectivization. It was a policy which eventually did away
with all vestiges of private enterprise. The entire country was con-
verted into one great economic imit managed hierarchically by
a bureaucratic apparatus that covers all aspects of industrial and
agricultural production and distribution.
COMMUNISM 61
COMMUNISM 63
tistical figures about these slave workers whose number has been
vaguely estimated at between fourteen and twenty million. For
disloyalty during World War II entire tribes of non-Slavic races,
* It is in line with this attitude towards personal freedom that Russian women who
married foreigners are forbidden to leave the country with their husbands, and that
in 1947 a law was passed — unheard of in the annals of any civilized country
forbidding; marriage between Russians and foreign citizens.
—
64 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
such as the Kalmucks, the Crimean Tartars, the Volga-Germans
and various nationalities on hoth slopes of the Caucasus range,
where they had lived since time immemorial, have been trans-
planted to regions where forced labor and an unaccustomed cli-
mate doom them to extinction. The same fate is now being meted
out to the bulk of the Latvian and Estonian population for the pur-
pose of settling the formerly independent Baltic republics with
Russians proper.
Restrictions upon travel in the regions affected and absolute in-
ability of getting in touch with any of the persons undergoing
penalties on account of their political non-conformity, as well as
the definite refusal of the Soviet regime to accept the inspection
feature of the Baruch atom plan — all tend to confirm the most
horrifying reports on that subject. Wendell Willkie, a man by no
means unfriendly to the Soviet regime— his One World has been
widely circulated by the Communist book stores in the U. S, A.
had given the readers of his articles about his Russian trip a
glimpse of this aspect of Soviet Russia’s economy {Readers Di-
gest, Vol. 42, No. 251). But the passage in question was omit-
ted from the book edition of his One World. Fear lest this feature
of our Eastern ally’s social system dampen the war enthusiasm of
the readers induced the publishers and particularly the pro-Soviet
book to suppress the suggestive sentence.
editor of the
The “purges” and the “trials” of the late thirties are still gen-
erally remembered. They were devices by which Stalin aside —
—
from getting rid of some of his opponents was trying to placate
the masses and thus to consolidate his own power. For to the man
in the street the liquidated Old Guard of the Communist Party,
including practically all the top figures in the various central and
autonomous administrations, was the symbol of all his suffer-
ings and privations during the first two decades of the Soviet Re-
public. The “confessions,” extorted under threat of torture or of
extermination of the victims’ families — those who refused to “con-
fess” —
were shot without trial ^have been justly compared with
medieval witch trials at which the unfortunate women gave min-
COMMUNISM 65
From the outset it was the official policy of the Soviet Govern-
ment to treat all opponents —even those of the various democratic
socialist schools — as a sort of fifth column. Witness Lenin’s note
dated May 15, 1922, addressed to the then Commissar of Jus-
tice, D. 1. Kursky, which stated that “a formula must be found
that would place these activities [of tlie Mensheviks and Social-
Revolutionaries] in connection with the international bourgeoisie
and its struggle against us (bribery of the press and agents, war
preparations and the like).”
More than a decade later, when the civil war and its after-
Could not say that there was only one “class” or two “amicable
classes” in Russia, if one insisted, as Stalin and his assistants do,
that the Soviet Republic had already reached the phase of a
“classless society.”
Still more priceless was Stalin’s “admission” that the Consti-
tution left in force “the regime of the dictatorship” and the “lead-
ing position of the Communist Party.” In a “classless” society,
which Russia purports to be, the population no longer has any
“class enemies” to fight ;
for the capitalists, the landlords, as well
as their successors, the “nepnien” and the “kulaks,” had been- li-
quidated with a thoroughness worthy of a Genghis Khan. As a
result, there would seem to be no need for a political party which
in the Bolshevik terminology, was the “vanguard” of the class
whose interests it defended. A political “vanguard” in a popula-
tion “without classes” was a logical incongruity. Apparently
something was wrong with the idea that Russia was a “classless”
society.
\ii-ws on the subject? The well-known Marxist historian, Franz Meliring, in his
biography of Marx, frankly admits that the Critique went over the heads of the
delegates to the Socialist convention to whom it was addressed.
76 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
In the minds of practically every reader these phrases create
the impression that in the “first phase of communism” equality
of incomes was going to be established. The only drawback in
this equality, as Lenin puts it, would seem to be merely the fact
that “different people are not alike: one is strong, another is
weak; one is married, the other is not; one has more children, an-
other has less, and so on.” “With equal labor” Lenin quotes Marx to
this effect “and therefore an equal share in the social consumption
fund, one man in fact receives more than the other, one is richer
than the other, and so forth. In order to avoid all these defects,
right, instead of equal, must be unequal.” And he further para-
“
phrases Marx’s argument in the Critique by saying: ‘For an
equal quantity of labor, an equal quantity of products’ — this So-
Lenin himself —who was hungry only for power but not for
material comforts —personally never claimed himself for a share
that could have placed him in any privileged category. But, to
paraphrase the remark of a disgruntled ex-official of the Soviet
regime, the important thing was not how Lenin lived, but how
the good things of life were distributed among the various sections
of the Russian people.
Russia’s top stratum, after the victorious Bolshevik revolution,
consisted of the former revolutionists and conspirators who had
been the driving force of the great upheaval. Though calling them-
selves Communists, they took it for granted that they were to take
the cream of all the good things that were still left after all the
turmoil of war and revolution. The idea that it behooved men
claiming to be the saviors of the downtrodden to live on the same
rations as their charges did not occur to them. As in the pro-
verbial case of the Spanish monks and the American Indians, the
Communists worked for the future salvation of the masses and
the masses were compelled to work for the present comforts of
the Communist office-holders. (True, for many years the salary of
a Communist was supposed not to exceed the maximum of 300
rubles monthly; but in practice this salary constituted mere “pin
money”; for all the real expenditures, such as automobiles, coun-
try houses, etc. were supplied by the state over and above the
78 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
nominal salary.** This restriction, by the way, has been rescinded
many years ago).
The necessities of an efficient production made the Soviet lead-
ers realize that it would be very practical to raise the managerial
technical personnel to the status of the best paid stratum of the
population. Politically they had nothing to say, of course, but
neither did anybody else.
comes which he was attacking. For that idea meant merely that
a laborer, if he put in a whole day’s work, was entitled to the same
amount of money as the office-holder or technician for the same
time, and that for this money he could buy any quantity or qual-
ity of goods or services he chose. Leaving aside the question of
practicability, the very fact that Stalin had to attack so often the
“equalitarian idiocy” indicates that to the workers at large, and
particularly to the lowest paid, that “idiocy” must have a great
appeal, and that they see in it the essence of communism.
Even before Stalin’s speech, Michael Kalinin, Russia’s late
“worker-peasant” President, from time to time tried to allay the
workers’ dissatisfaction over the prevailing inequalities. “We
are still very from real equality” he said in one of his
far
speeches; “until we have attained complete communism there can
be no real equality.” But as communism, in its true economic
connotation means nothing else than equality of incomes, Kalinin’s
consolation amounts to the promise that there would be no equal-
ity, as long as there was — ^no equality. Which was certainly as un-
assailable as the remark made — ^not in jest — ^by Napoleon III, that
cialism was the signal for a speedy abandonment of all the afore-
mentioned masquerades of the initial phase of the Revolution.
The Russian cities eventually returned to the normal aspect of
the Western capitalist world with their external manifestations
of wealth and poverty. In the December 22, 1935 issue of the
New York Times, Walter Duranty, who has been consistently
friendly to the Soviet regime, remarked that the “differentiation
of wages .... must lead to a new class differentiation in what
claims to be a classless society, a new class of bureaucrats and
directors of state enterprises, a new class of high paid upper
workers all of whom together mU form, or are forming a new
bourgeoisie.” Since Duranty wrote these lines the introduction
of comparatively high tuition fees for secondary schools and uni-
versities has rendered the acquisition of higher education a mo-
nopoly of the new bureaucratic and managerial aristocracy. In-
equalities of social and economic status have ihus become heredi-
tary institutions.
The Soviet regime is of course very careful not to give any ex-
act income statistics. Critics of the regime — particularly Trotsky
and Burnham —who studied what figures were available, came to
the conclusion that “the upper 11 of 12 per cent of the Soviet
population now receives approximately 50 per cent of the na-
tional income”, while a similar fraction of the population of the
82 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
United States — to be more upper 10 per cent
exact, the
— “receives
approximately 35 per cent of the national income.”
says its prayers on behalf of the regime. And after the annexation
of Eastern Poland, as a result of World War II, the Ukrainian
peasants inhabiting that region, who had hitherto professed an
Oriental version of Roman Catholicism, were compelled to give up
their allegiance to the Vatican and to join the Orthodox Church to
which the Ukrainians of the Soviet Union belong. (It was in line
ment, wrote during that period all the official appeals of that or-
*
ganization.
At first the parlies of the Communist International outside the
U.S.S.R. were comparatively small sects of enthusiasts or fanatics.
In this respect the affiliated organizations were not different from
other revolutionary bodies that had sprung up in the course of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Soon enough, however, a very
important difference became quite apparent. The Communist or-
ganizations abroad were organized along the same lines as the
parent body: as a strictly disciplined army of professional revolu-
tionists following instructions given from above. That “above”
was the Soviet Government which supplied all the funds neces-
sary for the functioning of those organizations. Thus, for all prac-
tical purposes the German, the Hungarian, the French, the Chinese
and Communist party leaders became paid functionaries
all other
“In the New York Times of March 2, 1933, Walter Duranty, a correspondent
friendly to the Soviet regime, inadvertently (or cynically) spilled the beans by stating
at the time of Hitler’s assumption of power: “It is beyond question that Moscow
would welcome even a one hundred percent Hitler regime on the grounds that it would
conjure away the nightmare that has harrassed the sleep of Soviet statesmen for the
past five years: namely, an anti-Bolshevik European coalition or a ‘holv war against
the Red Peril’.”
92 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
When a few years later it began to look as if the Nazis might
turn against Russia rather than against the Western powers, the
Communist International dropped its previous hostility to the So*
cialists and began to advocate a united front with the former
“Social-Fascists” (that insulting epithet was dropped, of course)
and even a popular front with all middle class parties of the
Western countries, provided they were opposed to the Nazis. The
French Communists, who until that time had been staunch anti-
patriots, suddenly became most vociferous in professing their de-
votion to their country, going even so far as to top their posters
with the legend “France for the French!” — a slogan by the way
which, a few decades previous, had been coined by Edouard Dru-
moiit, leader of the French anti-Semites.
And when shortly before the outbreak of the second World
War Soviet Russia concluded that fateful alliance with Hitler, the
Communists the world over repeated Molotov’s famous phrase
about fascism being “a matter of taste,” and kept echoing the as-
sertions of the Moscow press that it was the Allies who were the
aggressors, since after the partition of Poland between Nazi Ger-
many and Soviet Russia in 1939, France and England insisted
upon continuing their war against Germany. And they maintained
their opposition to the Allied war efforts against the Berlin-Rome
Axis until the moment when Russia was attacked by the Nazis.
Not all Communists outside of Russia were ready to accept
without questioning all those changes of policy dictated by the
interests of Russia’s ruling bureaucracy. Many of them bolted,
either to withdraw completely from all political activity, or to
join various groups of the moderate or ultra-radical Left.
The fascination which the Stalin regime has had for a great
number of the foremost intellectuals of our day is one of the
greatest spiritual tragi-comedies of history. No doubt it has its
There are also admirers of the Stalin regime whose attitude has
nothing to do with honest delusion or sincere passion. These are
the professional Communists and some of their not quite disinter-
ested hangers-on. During the last few years they have won a con-
94 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
siderable following by coupling a spurious enthusiasm for Amer-
ican institutions with an unconditional apology for Russian ab-
solutism which they contrive to present as genuine democracy.
Thus Earl Browder, until 1945 the uncontested leader of the
party, came out “unequivocally in defense of the full mainten-
ance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights for Communists as well
as all others” {Daily Worker, Oct. 15, 1939). Yet only three
years earlier, when asked whether “the one per cent [of the popu-
lation that holds dissenting views] is entitled to the freedom of
the press in Soviet Russia,”? he answered: “It is not. We be-
lieve in majority rule.” {Daily Worker, September 1, 1936).
The Communists and their friends are equally wrong in their con-
form of op-
tention that the fascist regimes represent a capitalist
pression. Wherever the Fascists were or have been in power long
enough, they left no doubt that they were, or are, bent upon the
elimination of private enterprise, first through government con-
trol and later by means of government ownership. In contradis-
tinction to the Russian experiment, theirs has been a gradual proc-
ess, carried out in the form of restrictions, levies, assessments and
heavy taxation. That process now going on in Argentina; for,
is
having learned his lesson from the Russian Revolution, the gifted
disciple of Mussolini and Hitler wants to avoid the chaotic con-
COMMUNISM 95
to the Party convention, lest Stalin steal their thunder. The leader-
genious device of declaring that the World War is not over yet.
For the myth of the working class character of the Soviet system
(for all its temporary counter-revolutionary deviations, as the
Trotskyists would pul it), and the fascination it exerts upon all
malcontents who never had any direct contact with it, is too valu-
able a propaganda asset to be given up wantonly for the sole
reason that it is ... a myth.
There are groups of heretical Trotskyists —they had fallen out
with their teacher when he defended the invasion of Finland by
the Red Army —who have accepted as definitely valid Trotsky’s
hypothetical admission that the Soviet bureaucracy may be a new
exploiting class and that the Soviet system may not be a workers’
state. By maintaining their revolutionary Bolshevist position,
they apparently take the view that once they would be in charge
of a “proletarian dictatorship” things would develop in a perfectly
satisfactory way. To them one might apply Israel Zangwill’s
famous quip directed against Bernard Shaw, that “the way he
believes in himself is very refreshing in these atheistic days, when
so many men believe in no God at all.”
—
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boston, 1934.
Chernov, Victor: The Great Russian Revolution, New Haven, 1936.
Dallin, David J. The Reed Soviet Russia, New Haven, 1944.
:
1937.
m.
Socialism
UI.
SOQALISM
by
Algernon Lee
ing point which for practical reasons has been chosen for the sym-
posium to which it belongs is appropriate. Within a few years be-
fore and after 1901 the Socialist movement did actually undergo
a notable change in its ways of thinking and acting..
m
104 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
the supposed corpse. It is no mere paradox to say that it had drawn
fresh vigor from each reverse and had become solidified through
its schisms.
Such had been the half-century of Socialist history, conforming
to the pattern which Karl Marx had foreseen in the dismal winter
been summarizing was perhaps its chief objective cause, but it was
not the only one. We must turn our eyes also to France and to
Great Britain.
filled the next 44 years; the Second Republic endured (again nom-
inally) for 4 years; the Second Empire lived for 18 years; and
through an equal span of time the Third Republic was obviously
neither secure nor very genuinely republican.
Socialism is too commonly thought of as having been born in
France and "as being a child of the Great Revolution. This is true
SOCIALISM 107
Through nearly the first half of its life— say, from February,
1848, through the tragi-comic fiasco of Boulangism in 1888-’89
the French Socialist movement had again and yet again to permit
its own specific aims to fall into the back-ground, in order to func-
tion as the heroic advance guard in the fight for political liberty;
and in so doing it had but gradging support, alternating with
cynical betrayal, by more or less sincerely republican elements
among the peasantry and among the petty bourgeois, the shop-
keepers, the self-employing handicraftsmen, and the intellectual
declasses of the cities. Having to defend the achievements of the
Great Revolution against Bonapartist, Legitimist, and Orleanist
champions of a pretended future which was in fact an unburied
past, against a motley crew of greedy and ambitious adventurers,
and above all against the unholy alliance of High Finance, Cath-
olic Hierarchy, and General Staff, it had little opportunity to cri-
the poorer classes in their own country, but their utterances hardly
woke an echo among the masses. Had there been in Britain a labor
movement, however weak, which resembled the German or the
French in revolutionary aim and spirit, it could have given them
invaluable aid in critical moments; and if it had been compar-
able with them in strength it might, by influencing British public
opinion and Britain’s foreign policy, have brought about the
formation of a western democratic entente capable of holding
its own against the reactionism of St. Petersburg, Potsdam, Vien-
^na, and the Vatican. Nothing of the sort happened. The British
working people seemed to be hopelessly immune to the ideas by
which the European Socialists were guided and inspired.
The political backwardness of the British workers was not only
displeasing to their European brothers; it seemed to them almost
incomprehensible. From the Peasants’ War and the Anabaptist
risings (1524- ’36) at least until the sudden awakening of national
patriotism in 1812, the political history of the German people
had been a blank; and in France for a yet longer time, from the
days of Etienne Marcel and the Jacquerie (1.355-’58) down to
1789, the nearest approaches to popular revolt had been the brief
episode of Jeanne d’Arc in 1429 and the sectarian resistance of
the Vaudois and of the Huguenots. The English and Scottish peo-
ples, on the contrary, had revolutionary and largely democratic
traditions which ran back to the fourteenth century, and these had
been kept alive by poets and ballad makers, by playwrights and
novelists, as well as by historians and parliamentary orators.
Moreover, within comparatively recent times the lower strata, and
specifically the urban and rural wage workers, had set examples
that encouraged similar elements abroad.
^ Perhaps the most notable among these were William Godwin, author of Political
Justice, published in 1793, and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the
Rights of Women, published in 1792, who afterwards became Godwin’s wife. H. Noel
Brailsford’s Shelley, Godwin, and Their Circle (Henry Holt & Co., New York, un-
dated, but probably 1914) is almost indispensable for the understanding of this period.
112 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
execution of earlier heroes of the Revolution, from Bailly to Dan-
ton and the Desmoulins, by their more ruthless successors, the
avowed policy of “putting,Terror on the order of the day,” and
the growth of sordid corruption step by step with systematic blood-
shed — ^these things did cause among the British protagonists of
liberty a moral revulsion far more sincere than the upper-class
thrills of horror so theatrically expressed by Edmund Burke.
The Reign of Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the ignoble
ending of the First Republic did not, however, so much weaken
the British radical and labor movement as it aroused and united
the oligarchic elements. The suspension of the right of habeas
corpus in 1793 marked the turning point. Most historians pic-
ture the next three decades or thereabout as an age of self-sac-
rificing patriotism and military glory, and grow dithyrambic when
they speak the names of Pitt and Nelson and Wellington, and of
course writers of text-books and romances follow their lead. In
truth was one of the blackest periods
it in English history — ^a time
of economic and governmental tyranny at once cruel and calculat-
ing: for the masses was a time of squalor, degeneration, and in-
it
combat with the veteran forces of the old monarchies. They were
haunted by the nightmare of a vast conspiracy of workingmen and
peasants, planning to re-enact on British soil all the subversive
acts of the French canaille. The existence of the nightmare was
a fact, and potent for evil; but the ni^tmare itself was an illusion,
unconnected with objective truth. ITiere was no conspiracy, no
SOCIALISM 113
The first overt sign of desperate unrest was the naval mutiny of
1797, which involved several thousand seamen, composing the
crews of twenty-five or more warships then lying in home waters.
For two months they had possession of the vessels, with the can-
non, small arms, and ammunition, and they were defeated only
by the cutting off of their food supplies. Their conduct was amaz-
ingly self-disciplined, moderate, and humane. There was no trace
of revolutionary aims. The whole affair resembled what we now
call a sit-down strike, to support demands for a very slight in-
nine men were hanged, nine savagely flogged, and 29 sent to prison
for terms ranging from one to ei^t yeare. This done, a few of
the grievances were partially redressed, but the officers who had
flogged men literally to death and the civil officials who had en-
riched themselves hy grafting on food supplies went scot-free.®
^ The best account of this memoTahle affair, ignored by many historians, is The
Floating Republic, by C. E. Mainworing and ^namy Dobree (London, 1935; Amei-
lean reprint, 1937, Pelican Books). Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and
James Norman Hall (New York, 1932, Little, Brown & Co.) may wdl be read in this
connection. It is one of the few “novelized histories” that can be heartily recom-
mended.
—
ing and mobile wealth and the superior energy of the less re-
spectable scramblers for profit. This class struggle in the higher
strata of society did not break out at once, but within a few years
itbecame acute, and in the long run it deeply affected the develop-
ment of the working classes.
It was too late in English history for such a conflict to be settled
this or that class, and some of them even consciously oppose the
groups to which they respectively belong.^ It is nevertheless true
that the opinions and sympathies of most intellectuals are in the
main shaped and colored by their economic background, even if
^This was notably true of Byron and Shelley. Both of ^heae came of “good
family” and were themselves at least well-to-do. Yet Byron’s speech in the House
of Lords, opposing the “hangman’s bill” in 1812, and several of his later poems, as
well as most of Shelley's, culminating in Men of England and The Masque of Anarchy,
breathed ardent sympathy with the oppressed. This must be qualified, however, by
the remark that they saw the sins of the bourgeoisie more vividly than those of the
landlords.
SOCIALISM 117
cession of great poems which he poured forth from 1813 till his
death in 1822. Shelley’s poems are still a revolutionary force;
they are such, however, not because of the philosophical theory,
but because of the passion for human freedom and equality, the
burning hatred of cruelty and falsehood, which they express.
Writers more prosaic than Shelley and less didactic than God-
win had awakened popular thought in the earlier period such —
men, for example, as the Reverend Doctor Priestley, the Reverend
Doctor Price, and the very irreverent Thomas Paine. The dark
period from the passage of the Combination Acts till their re-
peal was bridged by the plain common sense of William Cob-
bett, whose Weekly Register struck right and left at every species
118 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
of outrage and sham, with the weight of a cudgel and the incisive-
ness of a rapier. Cohbett combined the aggressive spirit of early
tive parliament.
alism. The books of Malthus, Ricardo, and the elder Mill are
not easy reading, but they were widely read and discussed, and
more popular contemporary writings show that many members of
the lower middle and working classes were eager to understand
the relations among land rent, profits, wages, and the cost of liv-
ing, and the bearing of taxation upon these and other economic
phenomena. Not the least interested were the mechanics and fac-
tory operatives, in view of the fact that, while industry and com-
merce were expanding and becoming ever more profitable, and
while the price of land (which reflects the rental that land yields
to its owners) was increasing — ^that is, while both of the wealthy
classes were growing richer —^money wages were falling, their
purchasing power was declining still faster, and long hours of
labor coincided with widespread unemployment. Illiterate though
most of the wage workers were, workingmen’s clubs and even
Saturday night talks in the alehouse brought the new teachings
of economics within their ken and linked them with those of bit-
ter experience.
SOCIALISM 119
The cessation of the Luddite disorders did not appease the gov-
ernment’s hostility to working-class activities. Combination for the
purpose of raising wages was still a criminal practice, and prose-
cutions continued. For voteless workingmen, finding violence fu-
tile, to turn to open political activity was, the rulers felt, the height
of impudence and, if not promptly and sternly checked, would be
a prelude to the forcible overthrow of state, church, and property
institutions. Provisions of common andstatute law were invoked,
spies and stool pigeons were employed, and military force was held
in readiness, to break up the clubs and committees of correspond-
In those days, and for decades thereafter, the British masses considered beer a
form of nutriment as necessary os bread. See Frederick L. Olmstead’s An American
Fanner in England (1859), especially a passage in the fortieth chapter.
120 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
ence, and to deal with public meetings as riotous assemblages, np
matter how orderly they might be. Under suspension of habeas
corpus great numbers of persons were held in prison for as mud)
as ten months without being charged with any crime or misde-
meanor. Yet the agitation went on, gained strength, and spread
into Scotland. To the demand for repeal of the Com Laws and
the Combination Acts was now added the cry for electoral and
parliamentary reform. This gave the landed oligarchy two reasons
instead of one for fearing and hating the working-class movement.
The same reasons would have prompted an intelligent bourgeoisie
to regardit with some favor, for it would be to the advantage of
in any case, the government was stiU in the bands of the land-
owners, who were willing to “do the dirty work” of the employei^
whenever it did not conflict with their own class interests.
The war of the rich against the poor reached a crisis at Man-
chester on August 16, 1819. A midday mass meeting to urge
parliamentary reform had been called, to be held in St. Peter’s
^We use the word “liberal,” not in the vague and almost meanintdcM way it it
now commonly used bnn
in the United States, but in the definite sense it in moden*
British and European history, as designating the normal ideology and politioid
tendencies of a fairly mature industrial bourgeoisie, in distinction from those of tiH
landed aristocracy on the one hand and of the proletariat on the other.
SOCIALISM 121
children along, a sufficient proof that they had been gfVen no rea-
Sbn to expect forcible interference. Hunt had hardly begun to
religious rascals who were not content with the station in life to
which God had assigned them. Here were, indeed, some persons
who openly condemned the massacre ^notable
of rank and wealth —
among them being Sir Francis Burdett, who paid for his boldness
with three months in prison and a fine of $10,000—but these
were rare exceptions.
A defeat it was, for the time and through most of England,
Orator Hunt was imprisoned for two and a half years and three
of his associates for a year, and prosecutions followed at other
places. Public meetings almost ceased. In a short autumn session
parliament passed what are called the Six Acts, putting yet sharper
teeth into the various repressive laws, and especially prohibiting
correspondence between the political clubs and imposing a tax
of fourpence (eight cents) on every copy of a political pamphlet
a
ing people’s clubs were being formed in the textile and mining
districts. On
April 2 placards appeared, calling for cessation of
work until universal suflFrage was granted, in the name of the
“Committee for Organization of a Provisional Government” —
piece of folly which suggests the activity of stool-pigeons. The
proposed strike was fairly extensive, and small bands of badly
armed men made their appearance. One such group came into
conflict with a body of soldiers and was quickly put to flight. Nine-
teen of the men were captured, arrests were made elsewhere, and
the strike collapsed. A mass trial on charges of high treason en-
For the next few years the working-class movement, 'in both
its peaceable and its violent forms, seemed to be dead and was
actually quiescent. One might say that the workers were taking
do next. William Thomp-
stock of their past and thinking what to
son,John Gray, Thomas Hodgskin, and other writers, whose works
have long been forgotten, stimulated this process. They were
largely influenced by the ideas of
Bentham and the elder Mill, of
Ricardo, and of Robert Owen, whose voluminous contributions on
economic subjects had begun with his pamphlet on The Effect of
the Manufacturing System, published in 1815. For the time, while
the minds of the masses were stimulated, the stimulation had a
divisive rather than a unifying effect, attention being distracted
from the main objectives of their previous efforts — trade-union
organization, repeal of the Corn Laws, and winning of the right to
The Webbs tell us— ^and their statements of fact are seldom
open to question — that the repeal of the Combination Laws “was
rapidly passed through both houses, without either debate or divi-
sion.”^ There had, however, been patient and skilful work by
Joseph Hume and a few others in privately convincing or per-
suading hesitant members and in managing a committee of in-
The best account of this remarkable legislative act is to be found in the second
chapter of The History of Trade Unionism, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, first pub-
lished in 1894 and most accessible in the second edition! of 1902.
124 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
of this lay the tireless labor of Francis Place, not a member of
parliament, in collecting documentary material, promoting peti-
tions, and enlisting witnesses, ‘^ere was,” say the Webbs, “no
popular movement whatever for the repeal,” mainly because ex-
perience had convinced the workers that no help was to he ex-
pected from parliament as then constituted. For the moment this
was fortunate, for mass demonstrations would have stirred up
opposition to the repeal. In fact, the bill went through so easily
just because all concerned were completely mistaken as to the
effect it would produce. Place held that, once combinations ceased
to be unlawful, they would soon cease to exist; Hume and others
either already held this view or accepted it from Place; and so far
as the record shows, nobody questioned it at this time.^
vogue which the bourgeois doctrine of ltdssez /otre enjoyed at tbia time, creating a
general tendency to disapprove prohibitory and restrictive legislation. The fact Uut
within the four preceding years parliament had begun to soften the penal code and
had repealed some of the Navigation Acts and all statutes restricting workingmen’s
rights to travel or change their places of residence would) seem to 'favor this hypo-
thesis, which is strengthened also by Burdett’s speech in 1799 against the first Com-
bination Law, in which he declared that “the wise policy is toi leave trade of every
kind to find its own level.” (See Sir Frtmcis Burdett and His Times, by M. W. Pat-
terson, London, 1931, page 545).
SOCIALISM 125
The net result was that trade-union action was not in itself un-
lawful, though it was subject to legal attack at many points.
Even this was a substantial gain. From 1824 on, though the
labor organizations have had to fight many a hard battle to de-
fend the rights they had won, and bit by bit to win new rights,
trade unionism in both great and small industry has had a con-
tinuous existence and a gradually broadened basis of legality;
more slowly it has extended into the fields of agricultural and
“white collar” employment.
More disastrous to the labor movement than the amending act
of 1825 was the business depression which began toward the end
of that year and continued till 1829. Unemployment on a large
scale so weakened the unions that, instead of improving their con-
ditions, they struggled in vain against wage reductions. After a
momentary revival of machine-breaking, which was easily put
down, the workers again turned to political radicalism. Parliamen-
tary reform was their immediate objective, but they now looked be-
yond this to economic and social changes which, once manhood
suffrage was established, they might obtain by the power of their
numbers.
An Oligarchic Parliament
and sheep which had got under way earlier in the century. From
the 17608 on, the urban population gained on the rural at an ac-
celerating rate; and, injurious as the process was to the comfort,
itary House of Lords would have to bow to the will of the nomin-
Commons. All this did not mean that the govern-
ally elective
ment had become more democratic, for the lower house was a
grossly misrepresentative body.
Out of 6,000,000 adult males in the United Kingdom only 435,-
000 had the vole. This included practically no laborers, mechan-
ics, factory operatives, or tenant farmers and but few small busi-
ness men. As votes had to be given by voice and in public, there
was ample opportunity for bribery and for intimidation of voters
who could not l)e bribed. Furthermore, the allotment of seats bore
no proportion to the number of voters or of inhabitants in the
various counties and boroughs. The six northernmost counties
of England had 10 per cent more inhabitants than the ten south-
ernmost, but the latter had 235 seats and the former only 68.
Young industrial cities with populations ranging from 50,000 to
100,000 were entirely unrepresented, while many decadent bor-
oughs with only a few hundred or even a few dozen inhabitants
wene entitled to one or two members.^®
The 186 members representing counties were more or less hon-
estly elected by a very limited number of landed gentlemen. Of
the 472 borough members Professor Ogg says that “not more than
137 may be regarded as having been in any proper sense elected.”
Each of the remaining 335 was virtually appointed by some local
magnate. This gentleman or nobleman might appoint himself or
1** At least eight members (if parliament sat for eonstitueneics Mhich had abso-
lutely no inhabitants, anil one of which could have none, because its site had long
since been complelelv eiodcd by the sea. For more detailed accounts of suffrage
and representation at this period, of the fight for reform, and of the Act of 1932, see
The Governments of Europe, by Frederic Austin Ogg, New York, 1914, pages 77-96;
Modern and Contemporaiy European History, by J. Salwyn Schaptro, New York,
1918, chapters IV and V; A History of British Socialism, by Max Beer, London,
1919, first volume, pages 280-321; and Patterson’s Sir Francis Burdett, second vol-
ume, pages .S42-613. Beer’s two volume work, and also the later chapters of H.
B. Gibbins’ Industrial History of England (first published by Methuen in 1890, but
revised and continued in 1912) may be riHiommended as dealing much more fully
with all the British movements and events discused in this paper.
128 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
a member of his family, but he might and often did sell the seat
for the term of a single parliament, at the best price he could
get, which often ran up to $25,000 or more. Not a few of the
purchasers considered this as an investment, counting that they
could get it back with a good profit by selling their votes in par-
liament or by making their support of the ministry at a critical
moment conditional on getting a peerage, a lucrative public office,
—
from the bourgeois point of view maintenance of outworn insti-
tutions and policies which obstructed the development of modern
industry. Logic and common sense seem^ to exclude any hope
that a parliamentmost of whose members individually profited by
these abuses, would or could reform itself. The alternatives ap-
peared to be stagnation and violent revolution. The masses had
so little to lose that they were not averse to revolution; they only
doubted whether parliamentary reform was worth the price. The
knowing how deeply and with what good reason they
capitalists,
were hated by the masses, feared that revolution might ruin them
as well as the agrarian oligarchy, and so they “let I dare not wait
upon I would.”
SOCIALISM 129
With the ending of the war 1815 the bourgeois demand for
in
reform became more insistent,and with the collapse of the Lud-
dite activities soon afterward the working people raised the same
demand and with more far-reaching views. The
in a sterner tone
fundamental antagonism between capitalists and wage workers
could not easily be ignored, and for a few years the two ruling
classes continued to act together in trying to stamp out the work-
ing class movement. In the early 1820s, however, an “era of good
feeling” set in and after the repeal of the Combination Laws this
The victory was won —a victory of the capitalists over the land-
lords, won mainly by the courage of the proletariat.*^ By trans-
years was doubled in absolute number and grew from 3 to 4.5 per
Of course there were contributing causes. The extreme concentration of poli-
tical power and privilege in the uppermost section of the landowning oligarchy had
alienated many in its middle and lower strata. Moreover, the exclusiveness of that
—
class had been sapped by several processes ^matrimonial alliances between rank and
riches; purchase of landed estates by wealthy bourgeois; granting of many baronet-
cies and occasional peerages to commoners; and investment by nobles and gentlemen
in business enterprises. There is no room for doubt, however, that the decisive factor
was the menace of revolution which, once launched by the industrial wage woikers,
would probably be joined by the agricultural laborers and peasants. This danger
was accentuated by revolutionary events of 1830 and ’31 in France, Belgium, Poland,
Italy, and Spain, and agrarian disturbances in Ireland,
—
SOaALISM 131
When in 1932 the working people realized how they had been
betrayed their reaction was one of bitter but impotent wrath. The
moment for revolt was past. Whigs and Tories, manufacturers and
landowners, had reached an armistice. They could now unite to
crush any possible uprising, and would have the support of those
middle-class elements whom they had at least partially appeased.
The utter failure of this genuinely revolutionary effort of the work-
ing class was not due to lack of courage and devotion, but to their
error in trusting as political allies a class whose material interests
were antagonistic to their own. Many lost faith in the working-
class movement and sought comfort in religion or forgetfulness in
drink. Others, with more strength of character, took what was then
the bold step of emigrating to the United States.^ The rest dis-
agreed as to what they should do next. Various utopian schemes
had their day —mutual barter, co-operative workshops, com m un al
settlements on the land — ^but their day was not very long nor
very bright.More practical men turned to trade unionism, and
that movement was considerably strengthened. The members,
however, and especially the new recruits, had as yet no clear
notion of the difference between the aims and methods appropriate
to unionism and those of political organization. This lesson had
to be learned through experience.
13 No doubt most of these (whose whole number
was not very large) were aware
that within recent years manhood suffrage and free public schools had been
estab-
lished in several states and that along the Atlantic seaboard, from New
Hampshire
down to Maryland, a hopeful and vigorous labor movement was functioning on both
political and trade-union lines. This movement took shape in the
later 1820s and
was practically extinct by 1840. Its decline was probably due to several
causes—
the competition of Owenite and Fourierite utopianism, growing interest
in the slavery
question and the land question, and the effect of the new railways in drawing
off the
most energetic of the workingmen from the seaboard to what we now call the
Middle
West.—-This period in American history has not yet, we think, been adequately
treated, even by such outstanding scholars as Charles A. Beard
and Arthur Schles-
inger. Credit is due to Frank Tracy Carlton, who pioneered in the
field some forty
yews ago. Reference may be made to James Oneal, The Workers in American History
.,and A. M. Simons, Social Forces in American History, both published in
1911-^
The present writer’s old friend, the late Hermann Schliiter, told him that in the coum
of research preliminary to writing Die Chartisten-Bewegung (New York,
1916) he
foufl^ evidence that some of the British immigranu became active in the
American
labor movement.
SOCIALISM 133
A Grand Fiasco
were well adapted to attract the enthusiastic and the reckless, who
were also, of course, the most impatient and least reliable. In the
134 European ideologies
first six months the organization enrolled half a million membetS,
constituting with their dependents about one-tenth of the popula-
tion, hut still far short of the necessary overwhelming majority.
Then membership ceased and a yet more rapid de-
the growth of
cline set in. Unfortunately, such a movement cannot operate so
quietly as does a thief in the night. The propertied classes and
their government were wide awake, and they took prompt and
drastic action. Under those parts of the combination laws which
had been re-enacted in 182.5, under various other statutes, and
under rules of the common law, many arrests were made, middle-
class jurors were ready to convict, and upper-class judges imposed
sentences out of all keeping with the generally trivial overt acts
committed. The general strike, too tardily proposed, and yet pro-
posed without any preparation, never even began. What did come
and saved the Grand Consolidated from being a complete fiasco,
was the energetic protest against governmental cruelty the mass —
demonstrations, the monster petitions, the raising of funds for
and their families, in which the conservative unions
the victims
and many unorganized sympathizers took part, and which con-
tinued after the Grand Consolidated itself had ceased to exist.
The fact that, while the Grand Consolidated was still in its grow-
ing phase, and when the repressive measures had already begun,
parliament passed factory laws in advance of any that had previ-
ously been enacted illustrates our statement already made, that
formidable activities of the working
even though failing of
class,
theirimmediate aims, did wring concessions which were never
made when the workers were quiet.
The fantastic episode of the Grand Consolidated had a sober-
ing and clarifying rather than a depressing effect. From this point
on the activities of the British working class ran in three parallel
channels, not unfriendly one to another and all in their different
ways contributing or seeking to contribute to the welfare of the
working people, but with little direct collaboration or mutual sup-
port — that of conservative or at least nonrevolutionary and for a
time almost completely nonpolitical trade unionism; that of in-
SOCIAUSM 135
black or brown, the co-operatives (as also the trade unions) were
deprived of their autonomy, plundered, and degraded into subor-
dinate agencies of the all-powerful, raj)acious, and antidemocratic
state. In those regions that have at length been liberated by the
Allied arms, they are being rebuilt, but this process is hampered
by the frightful ruin of the whole European economy.
quire every applicant to sign a paper stating that he did not be-
long to and promising that he would not join any labor union.
His refusal to sign was of course communicated to other employ-
ers; by exercising his lawful right he lost his opportunity to earn
a livelihood in any place where he was known. If the union was
to gain members and hold them it must give not only the right
hand of fellowship but also the helping hand of financial relief to
men who took this risk. Only a little less imperative was the ne-
cessity of relieving members who fell sick or were injured at their
work^^ or who lost their jobs in time of business depression. Not
until a union had a considerable number of members who by pay-
ment of dues had come had a stake in its con-
to feel that they
cers knew that a lost strike or lockout, or a too long struggle, even
though ending in victory, might deplete its funds, lower its morale
In Great Britain for many years after tlie lime of which we speak, and in the
United States until about forty years ago, the law as to employers’ liability for
accident to employees gave every advantage to the defense and made it in most cases
not worth while for an injured workman to sue for damages.
—
conflict with their employers, they were able also to win small
Marx and Frederick Engels and some of them were for a time
members of the International Working Men’s Association.
After the unions of this type had got well started, unionism
gained a foothold also in the coal fields and and
in the textile
jealous of the trade unions, and many of the njembers and ad-
herents of the movement were loyal and active union men. There
was simply a recognition of the fact that the forms and methods
suitable to the one movement were unsuitable to the other.
The story of Chartism, from its «)rigin in 1836, through its
tliree peaks in 1839, 1842, and 1848, and its lingering death-in-
life from then fill 1858, with its intervening schisms and aber-
rations, has been so fully told in books which are easily avail-
able’" that it need not detain us long. Could the movement have
been held to the original plan of concentrating all its efforts on
the one object of democratizing parliament, its following might
never have been so large as it was at the peaks, but it might have
Iteen more effective. Inevitably, however, as soon as it showed
some strength, it was joined by groups that were especially in-
By 1858 its last vestiges had disappeared, and not until the 18806
was there even the barest beginning, nor until the ’90s a really
visible beginning, of independent political action. For all that,
of what were called trades councils — that is, delegate bodies which
linked together, without much authority, but with great effective-
ness, the local unions of various trades and industries within each
area. In 1864 the danger of hostile legislation became acute and
the Glasgow Trades Council called for a national conference to
combat it, and three years later the Sheffield Trades Council took
the lead in convoking such a conference to plan defense against
extensive lockouts which were then taking place. These confer-
ences were not looked on with favor by the Junta and the unions
under its leadership, but eventually they had to accept the inno-
vation. In' 1868 a conference met in Birmingham, in response
i^The BritUh Trade Union Congress is the oldest body of its kind iir the world.
The American Federation of Labor (under a different name for its first five yean)
dates from 1881. In Germany a corresponding body was formed in 1891, France
followed in 1895, and the example was imitated in most European and Latin Amer-
ican countries. There came into existence also international federations of great
industries, and at length an International Federation of Trade Unions. Two world
wars and the (Communist schism have crippled but not killed thuase international
bodies.
144 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
were dropping as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place be-
neath or, to putmore prosaically, when wise Liberals and oc-
it
where most of us know even less about the facts of English social
history than about our own. It is rather comforting (to those of
us who prize comfort above truth) to be assured in these unsettled
times that we “Anglo-Saxons” are essentially unlike Kelts and
Teutons, Latins and Slavs, in that it is our nature to go ahead at
a quiet and even pace, without jumping or jostling or otherwise
disturbing the peace. Strangely enough, most Englishmen seem
tobe equally credulous. English workingmen at least should re-
member the pit whence they have been digged and the rock whence
they have been hewn, and how dark was the pit and how painful
the task of hewing away the rock that weighed them down. When
British labor leaders shake their
heads disapprovingly at the very
thought of revolution and solemnly repudiate the notion of class
struggle, we may suspect that this is a matter of “good form”
rather than a confession of faith.“
It is true that in the course of that century, and even during
its first and second third, when the power of making laws was still
Some forty years ago Dr. Anna Ingerman, a well known New York socialist, had
an interview with Keir Hardie in London. At a certain point Hardie interrupted to
say, “We British socialists don’t believe in class struggle.” “Yes, I know that ” was
the reply, “but we American socialists think of you. Comrade Hardie, as the
fi n-^ t
embodiment of the idea of class struggle”— and, she afterward told us, Hardie seemed
to be very well pleased.
SOCIALISM 14^
motives and itseffects. The motives call for our attention, not
interests.
valid workers to sell their services to the employers for less than
the barest living, thus dragging down the general level of wages,
in order to escape the physical and moral misery of going to the
workhouse, which the advocates of the law declared ought to be
made “a house of terror.” As Scrooge said, “If they would rather
die they had better do so, and reduce the surplus population.”
Betty Higden did.
In the matter of the Corn Laws there would appear to be a
clearly defined antagonism between the landlords, who were as-
sured an excessively high price for their grain, and the working
people, whose numbers made them the principal customers. The
workers, however, showed comparatively little interest in the ques-
tion because they believed, as did the employing class, that a
cheapening of bread would make possible a counterbalancing re-
duction of wages. Such would have been the case, had not growth
of England’s exports of manufactured goods brought about a per-
ceptible increase of demand for labor power by the
the laws tiTnt>
ployers and wage workers and ultimately went in the main to the
latter. was the employers who fought the battle, but for their
It
was the first law in the world giving even limited protection to
any adult workers, and in practice, unexpectedly to all concerned,
it brought the shorter workday also to large numbers of men work-
ter stubbornly opposed it; the very paladin of Liberalism, the pious
and philanthropic John Bright, denounced the Ten Hour Law as
“one of the worst measures ever passed.” The Liberals were strong
for redistribution of seats, but very hesitant as to extension of the
right to vote. In 1842 the Liberal historian Macaulay declared
in parliament that manhood suffrage “would be fatal to all the
purposes for which government exists . . . and utterly incompati-
ble with the very existence of civilization”; and the ensuing divi-
sion indicated that most of the Liberal members agreed with him.
In 1867 it was a Conservative ministry that carried through an
more than twice
act extending the suffrage to as many men as
would have been enfranchised by a bill which the Liberals had
proposed a few months earlier; had the Liberals had their way,
comparatively few workingmen would have got the vote. These
and many other farts justify us in saying that neither party did
ers and made it a eertainty that before long those of the agricul-
turaland mining districts would be added to the electorate.
The speed and comparative ease with which these great for-
ward steps were taken made it easy to believe that a durable so-
cial peace bad taken the place of the strife and turmoil of the
last seventy years. It is no wonder that a mood of easy going op-
timism and we may almost say of intellectual indolence ensued.
20 Much light lia.o been thrown on this by Eduarrl Bernstein in liis Soziafismus und
Demokratie in der Grossen Englischfn Revolution, 1908, an English translation of
wliich is to be desired.
150 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
but somewhat contemptuous of its childish adventures. True,
there had been no working-class revolution in the ordinary sense
—
of the phrase and indeed there still has been none and probably
will be none, in that sense —
but to deny that there had been a
revolutionary movement of the British working class, with a his-
tory full of heroic efforts and tragic reverses, for decades before
any comparable movement had begun on the Continent, or that
its and experiences have contributed to make the British
results
labor movement what it is today, is altogether unjustified. There
is something vividly symbolic in the fact that Andrew Hardie was
hanged in 1819, and that in 1892 his great-nephew, James Keir
Hardie, was the
first avowed Socialist independently elected to the
fine our attention to these —bearing in mind also that Marx was
not the sole demiurge of midcentury Socialism, though clearly
foremost among those who made it what it was, which is equally
true of Luther and the origin of Protestantism.
Here and a lew other points in the following pages the writer takes the
at
liberty (kindly granted by tbe Rand School Press) of borrowing some passages from
his general introduction to Essentials of Marx, published in 1926. It will not be
necessary to identify these by quotation marks or otherwise.
22 The best biographies are Karl Marx-. Geschichte Seines Lebens, by Franz
Mehring, and Karl Marx: Man and Fighter, by Boris 1. Nicolaevsky and Otto Manchen-
Helfen. Otto Riihle’s Karl Marx: His Life and Work supplements these at some
points, but his attempt to psychoanalyze Marx is amateurish and inaccurate as to
facts. Wilhdm Liebknecht’s Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs, Karl Kautsky’s Aus
der Fruhteit des Marxismus, and Gustav Mayer’s Friedrich Engels: A Biography are
invaluable.
152 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
When we speak of the origin of Socialism, its growth and its
Hegelien Philosophy
^ It is true that, especially in the English speaking countries, there are a good
many reputable scientists wlio repudiate materialism. But it is equally true and
important that the methods which they use in their respectivd branches of research
are entirely consistent with the philosophy of materialistic monism and wholly
inconsistent with philosophical dualism. In their pursuit of knowledge, as Laplace
told Napoleon, they have no need for hypotheses about God, spirit, or other imma-
terial bein^, and would be hampered and misled by their intrusion.
154 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
tatorial power. The next eighteen years saw the growth of the
Hegelian philosophy to its maturity, and coincided with the Na-
poleonic period, the almost complete subjugation of Europe, and
then the huge disaster of the Russian campaign, the German War
of Liberation, the battles of Leipzig and of Waterloo, the Holy
Alliance, and the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty. Hegel died
in 1831, in the midst of a new turning of the political tide, marked
by the second French revolution of 1830, which drove out the
Bourbons and substituted the bourgeois and moderately liberal
Orleans Monarchy, the independence of Belgium in the same year,
the unsuccessful but inspiring Polish insurrection in 1830-’31,
and the firstreform of the British parliament in 1832. We think
this collocation of dates worth pondering. If Heine was right in
callingImmanuel Kant the Robespierre of German and European
philosophy, we may regard Hegel as its Napoleon but with the —
difference that in this case the empire survived its ruler.
In 1836 Karl Marx, then eighteen years old and with credit for
a year’s study at Bonn, transferred to Berlin, where Hegel had
taught for the last thirteen years of his life. One of the younger
universities (founded in1809) Berlin was still a sanctuary of
academic freedom, even under the shadow of Potsdam. The He-
gelian philosophy was still dominant there, but not unchallenged.
Although Hegel had been in intent and effect a German nationalist
and a champion of Prussian monarchy, and had long been ac-
cepted as such, some intelligent reactionaries had by this time
come to realize that in one of its aspects his philosophy
had rev-
olutionary implications, and there was an active opposition within
the faculty. Simultaneously there was developing within the stu-
dent body a revolt from the other direction, bringing into the light
just those dangerous implications.
Hegel, in sharpest antagonism to the French materialists of the
preceding era —an antagonism made
yet keener by the two de-
cades of political struggle between France, first revolutionary,
then imperial, and half-subjugated —
Germany ^had been a thor-
ough-going and aggressive idealist. To illustrate the meaning
SOCIALISM 155
itarian state. Throughout the Middle Ages the realists (in modem
phrase idealists) stood for the supreme authority of the universal
Holy Church, except in some instances when they favored the
supremacy of the would-be universal Holy Empire, while the
growth of nominalism (an approach to modern materialism) was
associated with the rising of national states and with schism within
the church. Not to multiply instances, it was in the regular course
of things that, the universal church having been dismembered and
the notion of universal empire having, as it then seemed, lost all
validity, the latestform of idealism should be accepted as the
philosophic bulwark of each national state and of each state church
against subversive movements for regional or local independence.
We are aware that this is a very inadequate statement of the two ways of
thinking, but we hope it may be comprehensible, so far as it goes. —
The medieval
thinkers whom we call idealists were in their own time called realists; there is no
—
difference in meaning to bold that ideas are real is the same as to hold that ideas
are retd. Their opponents, the nominalists and the conceptualists, approximated the
position of our materialists. In modern times “spiritualism” is often used as a
synonym for “idealism,” but this is unfortunate; the two viewq overlap, but are not
identical. —We must of course guard against attaching to these philosophical party
names the meanings they convey in common parlance. A
spiritualist in the philoso-
phical sense does not necessarUy believe in ghosts end patronize “mediums”; an
idealist may not be more altruistic or less practical than his neighbors; the medieval*
realists were not particularly “hard boiled”; nor are materialistic thinkers noted as
money grabbers or as gourmands.
156 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
for religious liberty, for the civil rights of individuals, for rd'
sponsibility of governments to peoples — in a word, for democracy.
The democratic aspirations which had blossomed in revolution-
ary France did not die with the fall of the Jacobins. Though
thwarted in practice under Napoleonic and Bourbon rule, they
lived on as aspirations, not only in their homeland, but in all the
countries where French influence was felt. Of their embodiment
in obscure conspiracies and occasionally in abortive revolts we
shall presently have something to say. They lived also, however,
in the minds of many young intellectuals who as yet neither con-
spired nor rebelled, and nowhere more than in Germany, where
a high and fairly widespread culture co-existed with a very effec-
tive system of repression. Cut off from action and even from open
discussion of social and political subjects, they took to philosophy,
not as an avenue of escape, but as possibly a way to the solu-
place, Hegel did not, like Leibnitz, hold that ‘‘Everything is for
the best in the best of all possible worlds.” He saw an intelligible
development in the physical univeise and in human society. Even
though he treated an evolution of “the Idea” reflected in
this as
tionary — or, to use terms less familiar now than they were a cen-
tury ago, his method was dialectic and theirs metaphysical. He
thought of everything in terms of process rather than of static
existence. Instead of saying “This isand that is not,” he said
“This is ceasing to be what it was and becoming what it was not.”
Something very like this method had been independently con-
ceived about five hundred years before Christ by the Greek Hera-
kleitos and by the Indian Gautama, but to nineteenth century Eu-
rope it came as a startling and invigorating novelty. Its specific
form and technique have since been almost forgotten, but only
because in substance it has become merged into the stream of
scientific thought.
was therefore much less sharp than it has ever been in our Amer-
ican universities. If not with the more distinguished professors,
it was at any rate possible and not unusual for the youthful under-
158 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
graduates to associate intimately with considerably older men
who held doctoral degrees and were in at least the lower ranks
of the teaching body. Such was the case with Marx, and he very
soon won a high standing among the Young Hegelians. The mem-
bers of this group — if it can rightly be called a group —were held
together by reverence for Hegel, by use of the dialectic thought
method, and by open and sometimes demonstrative opposition to
one or more aspects of the existing order of society. For the rest,
Marx as Publicist
hood. He had long since given up the idea of entering the legal
profession, but had hopefully qualified himself to become a pro-
fessor of philosophy. The fact of strong Prussian government hos-
tility, however, made it unlikely that he could obtain a profes-
sorship anywhere in Germany and extremely doubtful whether, if
appointed, he could hold the place very long. The alternative was
to live by his pen. In May, 1842, he became a regular contributor
to the Rheinische Zeitung, a politically liberal paper which had
recently .begun publication in Cologne, and five months later he
was made its chief editor. Another five months and he resigned
his position in the hope that this might save the paper from threat-
ened suppression, but within a fortnight the edict was carried into
effect. It is known that in this, as in many other instances before
and later, the authorities in Berlin acted under pressure from Saint
Petersburg.
'
SOCIALISM 159
“An exception may be made for the North African Arab historian Ibn Khaldun,
died in 1406. He does not seem to hare had any foreruiyter or successor in the
Moalem world, and his work was unknown in Europe until it was translated into
French four hundred years after his death.
160 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
with those by Xenophon and Aristotle. In the next two centuries
came efforts toward analysis of the economic process as a whole,
which led up to the theoretical systems of the Mercantilist and
Physiocratic schools, and these at length gave place to the masterly
work of Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations was published in
1776.
Let US' note that the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright,
Smeaton, and Walt were made l)elween 1760 and 1770; that
Crompton’s improvement on the earlier spinning machines came
only in 1779; that the first use of steam to run a factory was in
1785; that Cartwright’s power loom, patented in 1785, was but
little used until 1813; and that Eli Whitney’s cotton gin came into
use after 1 795. These dates show why, when Adam Smith gave his
book to the press, he had no idea that an unprecedented revolu-
tion was getting under way. His Wealth of Nations closed an era
in the history of economic thought and cleared the road for a new
development.
Within a generation the revolution in the world of fact was
visible to all who were not unwilling to see. The factory system
was spreading like a green bay tree (see Psalms, 37.35) — or like
the upas tree of travelers’ tales. Low-born mill owners were tak-
ing precedence of the landed gentry. The old class of self-employ-
ing hand workers homes and small shops was being extermin-
in
of life whereto God had called them, and for his own part thanked
God that his own lines were fallen to him in pleasant places. The
honest business man honestly declared that he’d never stolen six-
pence in his life, and least of all from a penniless starveling. And
all this was not wanton cruelty nor conscious hypocrisy. They
did not understand the world in which they lived and throve. They
did not think in terms of an economic system. To their way of
thinking the misery of the masses was in the same category as
earthquakes and tornados — causeless and humanly cureless evils
Ricardian Economics
breadth? All other wri'ers had been crushed and overlaid by the
enormous weight of facts and documents. Mr. Ricardo had
deduced . . . laws which first gave a ray of light into the un-
wieldy chaos of materials, and had constructed what had been
but a collection of tentative discussions into a science.”
overlooked was that the doors of the armory were open to all and
that the weapons could be pointed either way.**
Marx did not simply accept Ricardo’s conclusions. He studied
given moment, but must indicate the directions and, so far as prac-
ticable, the momenta of change. In brief, economics became dy-
namic in the hands of Marx, and it thereby became a revolution-
ary force.
This is no doubt the reason why bourgeois economists began, after the third
quarter of the nineteenth century, to moderate their devotion to Ricardo, and why
they have now got to the point of treating his work as a historical, curiosity. It re-
quires some very difficult contortions to accept Ricardo and reject Marx. The present
writer can well remember the lime when our high school textbooks of political
economy were still based on Ricardo, but showed some effort to avoid logical infer-
ences from his theories. A few years later, at any rate on the college level, Marshall
was being exalted in his place, and then Bohm-Bawerk took front rank, with his
—
“marginal’' theories which, by the way, are not fundamentally inconsistent with
Ricardian principles. More recently still the tendency is to pay as little attention
as possible to theories of value, price, rent, and wages and to substitute an empirical
treatment of commercial and financial phenomena.
i64 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
prepares the conditions of existence for its successor, Marx tlie!
Marx and Engels, which had taken form by 1848, though it had
not yet been developed in its various details, and which, subject
of course to modifications, was and is the theoretical system of
mained barren, had there not already existed the vague and un-
linked elements of a movement of social discontent, to which they
devoted themselves and which their clear thinking greatly helped
to unify, to guide, and to inspire.
mirage retards the desert traveler by diverting him from his right
course. Except for that, only the Saint-Simonian sect presented
an obstacle in 1848.
- Let us here eniphaticully declare llial the Marxian tlieoretiral system is nut a
body of rigid dogmas. In its very nature it is self-critical. Those who, as followers or
as antagonists, cite utterances of Marx, Engels, and their cullahoraturs and con-
tiuators as religious sectaries or controversialists cite scriptural texts, do not know
the very elements of their way of thinking. The Marx of 1860 or 1870 sometimes
disagrees with the Marx of 1848. To the honest student this presents no difficulty,
hut he is interested to find out how Marx came to change his mind.
SOCIALISM 165
connected stales did any but the rich bourgeois share power with
the aristocrats. It was therefore possible for the middle classes to
hold democratic opinions, except —and it was an important excep-
tion — in so far as they were deterred by fear of what the lower
classes might do if a revolution was to get under way. In some
166 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
parts of Germany the factory system was developing, though it
was still small in comparison with the British, and the not very
letariat.
Underground Communism
sociate were guillotined, and the society disappeared, but for more
than half a century, especially in France, Germany, and 'Italy,
such groups were being formed, dissolved, unearthed, broken up,
and formed again.
This underground communism was generally of a utopian sort
— that is, from an abstract
to use Plekhanoff’s words, “starting
principle, sought to devise a perfect society.” Each group had
it
French.
-•* Engols’ barkgniuncl and early cxperienrea rontrasted sharply with tho^e of
Marx, who wab two years liih seniiii. He rame of a narrowly pious Protestant family,
which had built up a prosperous textile manufacturing business in tbe Wupperthal
(a hundred miles north of Marx’ native Trier) with an imporlant branch in England.
A year before he had completed gymna'-ium he was placed in tiis father’s business
and in 1842. at the age of twenty four, he was sent to Manchester, which, with
slight interruption, was his home until he retired from business in 1870; thereafter
he lived in Lomlon, where he Hied in 1895. having outlivi>d Marx by twelve years.
Engels knew the life of the wage workers. German and English, by direct observa-
tion, and he knew capitalist industry and commeicr by twenty-eight years of active
participation, from the status of clerk to that of managing partner. His intellectual
development, up to the time when he met Marx as an equal in 1842-’43, had been
achieved without academic aid. yet it had run in a closely parallel course. For the
next forty years they shared their thinking and, although he always minimized his
part, he undouhtedlv made a very large contribution to the joint product. —Gustav
Mayer's Friedrich Engels: A Biography (published in German, at the Hague. 1934;
English translation by J. H. Crossman. Knopf. New York, 1936) ranks with Mehr
ing’s and Nicolaevsky’s biographies of Marx. Kari Kautskv’s Aus der Friihzeit des
Marxismus (Prague, 1935) richly supplements both.
SOCIALISM 169
Thus modern Socialism was born, not solely out of the minds
of two great theoreticians (who were also, as their whole lives
thereafter showed, also great propagandists, organizers, and tac-
Marxian Economics
SOCIALISM 171
is not less childish to find fault with him, as some do, for not hav-
ing written about phenomena which did not exist while he was
living or to distort his meaning by quoting single sentences out of
their context.®^ Worst of all is to forget that in Capital he was
analyzing the capitalist made of production as it existed in his
lifetime, not writing cook books for the future.
Of at least equal importance is Marx’ work in the field of so-
cial history. At about the same time when he set himself to an
first volume of Capital, by Samuel
^**The authoritative English translation of the
Moure and Edward Aveling, appeared and those of the second and third
in 1886.
volumes, by Ernest Untcrman, in 1907 and 1W9. The Critique was translated by
N. I. Stone and published in 1904. As to the various popularizations, the two which
we deem valuable are Karl Marx’s Oekonomische Lehren, by Karl Kautsky, 1887,
English translation bv H. J. Stenning, 1925, and Karl Marx’s Capital: An Introduc-
tory Essay, by A. D. Lindsay, 1925.
Marxian eennomics did not become a closed canon with the publication of the
third volume of Capital. Rudolf Hilferding’s Das Finanxkapital (1910) and Rosa
Luxemburg’s Die Akkumtdation des Kapitals (1921) are but two of the important
works of his disciples.
172 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
exhaustive study of economics he felt the necessity of mastering
what was then called the “philosophy of law,” and this soon led
him “to the conclusion that legal relations as well as forms of
the state could neither be understood by themselves nor explained
by the so-called general progress of the human mind, but that
they are rooted in the material conditions of life.” He soon found,
to his great satisfaction, that Engels “had come by another road to
the same conclusion.”
Historical Materialism
®-The fullest and best expiisitiiin and development of Marxian historical theory
is to be found in the two large volumes of Die Materialistuichc Geschirhtsauffassung,
by Karl Kautsky, published in 1929 ahd unfortunately not yet translated into Eng-
lish. Edwin R. A. Seligman’s Economic Interpretation of History (1902) is erudite,
conscientious, and very well written, and comes as near to an understanding of the
Marxian theory as seems to he attainable by any academic scholar who has had
no personal contact with the Socialist movement.
SOCIALISM 173
mained one of the most trusted and honored leaders, in the French
Socialist party and in the Socialist International, till the day of
his untimely death. Eduard Bernstein is another striking example.
Becausewas not a creed, but a body of scientific thought,
it
or question. The use is almost limited to the fields of religion and of law; we do
not speak of the Newtonian doctrine of gravitation, the Darwinian doctrine of the
origin of species, or the economic doctrine of diminishing returns. The present
writer therefore regrets that the English translation of Kautsky’s excellent Karl
Marx's Oekonomische Lehren has been entitled The Economic Doctrines of Karl
Marx. In this case Lehren might better have been translated Teachings.
—
system did not create the Socialist movement and while it did not
give that movement a ready-made program of action nor a blue-
print of the future society, it did provide certain broad concepts
for its practical guidance. Foremost among these we note the
concepts of class, of class consciousness, of class interest, and of
class struggle.'*'*
Class Struggles
The average American farmer may not have a larger real income
than the average American wage worker; but the fact that the
farmer possesses his material means of production and gets his
income by selling the commodities he has produced, while the
wage worker holds no productive wealth and lives by the sale of
marked difference between the im-
his labor power, results in a
mediate interests of the two classes and between their respective
**The term used by responsible Socialists has been in English “class struggle,”
in German die Klassenkampf, in French la luHe des classes, and so forth. Within
the last thirty or forty years certain socalled “intellectuals” have found it more
thrilling to talk of class war, and this has had a dangerously misleading elTect, es-
pecially upon juvenile and otherwise susreptible elements. Of course every war is
a struggle, but not every struggle is a war, and Socialists worthy of the name are
most unwilling to have the struggle for a classless society takts the specific form of
war.
—
SOCIAUSM 175
Thu U not to deny the existence of community of interest between any two or
among all three.
176 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
duction itself.” It is, we think, not unreasonable to say that this
proletariat — as Marx called it, giving a precise new meaning to
an almost forgotten word —
would in time merely out of its own
experience, have become conscious, not only of its own common
interests and of the antagonism between these and the interests of
both the propertied classes, nor only of the power of its numbers,
but also of its own indispensability and of its latent capacity to
take over the functions of direction and management which the
owners of capital were already delegating to salaried employees;
they would have seen, moreover, that their right course was not to
destroy the capitalist mode of production nor even to hamper its
confines its appeal to the working class, and certainly not that it
Socialist Internationalism
sided activity. For many years he, a German and a Jew, was a
frequent speaker at the public meetings and patriotic demonstra-
tions of the Polish “colony” in London, largely composed of
refugees. It may be said that his passionate desire for Polish
liberation was motivated by the fact that an independent Poland
would be a bulwark against Russian aggression. This is in large
part true, but it is not the whole truth. He was deeply moved by
admiration for the steady courage of a people who had resisted
the partitions of 1772, 1792, and 1795 and who, under the most
drastic repression, had preserved their national consciousness and
their will to be free. In an address delivered in 1862, the manu-
script of which was not published till twenty years after his death,
he called Poland I’immortel chevalier de I’Europe and bitterly re-
proached the Western Powers for their folly as well as their in-
SOCIALISM 183
Next came the far sharper struggle with the Anarchists. Of all
Peter Kropotkin and Eli see Reclus, who thought it worth while tp
picture a Communist-Anarchist world, and thereby to incur the
task of answering all the questions that the unconverted may ask.
sibly the Alliance gave up its separate existence, but in fact it con-
opposed.
The struggle was not so fierce as that which had culminated
at the Hague —probably because both factions paid regard to what
the Bakunists and forty years later the Bolshevists called the
“bourgeois virtues” of truth, honor, and humanity —nor was it
don,” and the next registrant had written “There ain’t going to be
no revolution, H. G. Wells.” The Englishman lived to see his pre-
diction contradicted hy current history all over the Continent; but
had London lived as long he would hardly have rejoiced over the
verification of hisown forecast. On the very eve of what we were
soon calling “the war to end war” there was a very general belief
that there would never again be an armed conflict among the great
powers of Europe nor a violent revolution anywhere west of Rus-
sia and the Balkan states. Most of us who were then adults feel
Anarcho-Syndicalism
not mainly for immediate gains that might be made, but as cul-
and preparing the workers for the time
tivating the spirit of revolt
when they would forcibly “seize and hold” the means of produc-
tion, In fairness it ought to be noted that the Anarcho-Syndicalists
did not follow the Anarchists in practicing assassination, and that
they have firmly opposed Bolshevisih.
At the turn of the century there were two Russian Socialist par-
ties, both with headquarters abroad and operating underground in
der which the one thing gained, the Duma (parliament) conceded
hy the Tsar, was almost a nullity. In 1913 and ’14 the democratic
and socialist forces were regaining strength, but then came World
War and a wave of national patriotism.
I
sociates had set up would within a few years transform itself into
Despite all this, since the ending of World War II, the Socialist
parties are stronger at this moment (January, 1948) are stronger
than they were in 1918 or at any time since. In regional and
local elections held in the American, British, and French zones
of Germany in the postwar period the Social Democratic vote
has been about equal to that of the Christian Democrats and much
The organ of the Russian Communist Party, tlie daily Pravda, justified
ofErial
this conduct on the theory that by some made-to-order law of history, the triumph
of Nazism was a necessary preliminary In the (.omn'.uni^t revolution.
194 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
larger than that of any other party. In all other countries west of
the Russian sphere of domniation they are strongly represented
in the parliaments and ministries. Most important of all, the Brit-
ish general election in the summer of 1945 gave the Labor Party
(which frankly avows its Social Democratic character) a clear
majority at the polls and a decisive majority in parliament. With
the same dogged resolution that they showed in the war, the Brit-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For extensive bibliography see: Laidler, Harrt W.: Social-Economic
Movements, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1944.
• • •
Beer, Max A.: History of British Socialism, London, 1921.
Beer, Max A.: Fifty Years of International Socialism, New York, 1935.
Braatoy, Bjarne: Labor and War, London, 1934.
Blum, Leon: A UEckelle Humaine, Paris, 1945.
Cole, G. D. H.: British Working Class Politics, 1832-1914, London,
1941.
Engels, Frederick: Socialism Utopian and Scientific.
Gross, Feliks: The Polish Worker, New York, 19^.
Hillquit, Morris: Socialism in Theory and Practice, New York,
1909.
Hyndman, H. M.: Historical Basis of Socialism in England, 1883.
Jaures, Jean Leon: Oeuvres, Paris, 1931-39.
Kautsky, Karl: Parlamentarismus und Demokratie, Stuttgart, 1911.
Laidler, Harry W.: Social-Economic Movements, New York, 1944.
Macdonald, James Ramsay: The Socialist Movement, New York, 1911.
Marx, Karl: Capital.
Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick; The Communist Manifesto.
Nomad, Max: Rebels and Renegades, Macmillan, 1932.
Nomad, Max: Apostles of Revolution, Boston, 1939.
Owen, Robert: A New View of Society, New York, 1825.
Russell, Bertrand: Proposed Roads to Freedom; Socialism, Anar-
chism and Syndicalism, New York, 1919.
Saposs, David J. The Labor Movement in Postwar France, New York,
:
1931.
Sturmthal, Adolf: The Tragedy of European Labor, New York, 1943.
Thomas, Norman: America’s Way Out; A Program for Democracy,
New York, 1931.
Vandervelde, E.: Jaures, Paris, 1929.
Webb, Sidney: Socialism in England, 1889.
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice: The History of Trade Unionism, New
York, 1920.
IV.
European Trade
Unionism
IV.
Philip Taft
pp. 124-134.
Perlman, A Theory of the Labor Movement, Macmillan, New York, 1928,
p. 308.
EUROPEAN TRADE UNIONISM 201
England
sickness and old age. In contrast to the earlier unions, the En-
gineers, as did the unions in other trades, relied on their own
economic power which was based on a monopoly of the labor sup-
ply. The skilled English trade unions, which dominated the trade
union movement for several decades, were unconcerned with wel-
fare or labor legislation which the leaders opposed on philosophic
grounds. Highly centralized, the skilled union of the 1850’s de-
pended on monopoly and restriction of labor supply and con-
centrated upon a combination of protective and friendly activities.
Nor were they hospitable to any type of Socialist ideal. In com-
mon with the employer and the prevailing Victorian temper, the
skilled unions accepted the dogmas of classical economics and
their restrictionist and exclusive policies were based upon the prin-
ciple that limiting supply would tend to raise the price of labor.
Germany
Italy
Italian trade unionism goes back to the 1840’s and the organ-
ized resistance of the Torino printers against a wage reduction in
Belgium
Sweden
Conclusion
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Consumer Cooperation
and the
Freedom of Man
CONSUMER COOPERATION AND THE FREEDOM OF MAN
Editorial Note
211
—
V.
Horace M. Kallen
212
CONSUMER COOPERATION—FREEDOM OF MAN 213
was for what we today call “security,” and they identified secur-
ity with “employment” just as their descendants do. Of course
they knew that there were more fortunately placed people who
could eat and love and live without working, but it never occurred
to them that they themselves could be thus fortunate; that it is
those who do not eat that must die, not those who do not work.
Only if those who do not work are prevented from eating, leisure is
a road to disaster and death, instead of what it has always been
considered, the way to freedom, the way to the good life. The
Rochdale Pioneers had no thought of leisure or freedom. They
organized their Society in order to provide themselves with em-
ployment and food and clothing and shelter; in order to set up
“self-supporting colonies of united interests” whose inhabitants
might, by working them, earn and share “profits ... in proportion
to purchases.” “Profits,” “employment,” were focal in the aspira-
tions of the men of Rochdale.
Nor could it have been otherwise. The English world in which
they lived and moved and had their being was a producer-minded
world where they figured not as men but as workmen, not as mas-
ters of themselves but as employees and servants of their employ-
ers. And so they also considered themselves. It was in the hope
that they might relieve this condition that they organized their
Society of Equitable Pioneers.
But as this Society of theirs grew and budded and bourgeoned
in Branches and a Wholesale Department, and as it was joined by
new societies, inspired by their example, the Pioneers, remain-
ing all the while employees of the businesses for which they
worked, became in their turn employers in the businesses that
they owned. Early in their history they had been befriended by
—
cieties which employed them would have been put at a serious dis-
advantage in the competitive field. One of the many contributions
of J. T. W. Mitchell to the theory and practice of consumer or-
ganizations was to drive that point home, and in driving it home to
uncover the new meaning which consumer enterprise was giving
the term “profit.” By training and experience as producer-minded
as his opponents, Mitchell for a long time thought of “profit” in
the usual way. He long regarded consumer organization as but
a combination of “purchasing power,” and cooperation as but
a means of securing the “profits of trade to all the people.” In
the course of his defense of the interest of the consumer mem-
bers of the cooperative societies against inequitable demands by
their employees and against the justification of those demands by
the Christian Socialists, he came, however, to realize the primacy
of the consumer. Profit, he declared, is made by the consumption
of the people, and the consumers ought to have the profit. “The
Pioneers,” he advised the Cooperative Congress of 1892 “did not
,
that every one of the people will insome sort be enabled to work
for himself and not for another, and will know that he is his own
employee and not another’s. Thus he will have power over his
own support. A man whose power over his own support is in his
own will is a free man. A man whose support is in the power of
another’s will is not a free man. As The Federalist pointed out
long ago, “power over a man’s support is power over his will.”
Experience has shown that an economy based on the primacy of
the consumer, in the form of consumer cooperation, brings power
over a man’s support to the man’s own will.
In the long history of the human struggle for freedom, the
plain people rarely had this power. They were not free men.
In the classical civilization from which both the literary and the
theological “humanists” of our own time draw their tradition,
labor was not held to be worthy of free men. “The dignity of
labor” would have been a contradictory phrase to Plato and Aris-
totle, the thinkers who are taken as the spokesmen for what is
best and noblest in that tradition, and whose views and judgments
are so powerfully a part of our own living past. In the society
for which they spoke, as in every society until our own, the en-
tirely free men were the gentlemen, the men of birth and station,
and they were free because they could live their lives without
CONSUMER COOPERATION— FREEDOM OF MAN 217
earning their livings. They were free because they were at leisure,
and were very busy in their leisure. But their business was not
the business of the farmer, the artisan, and the mechanic, earning
his living. was the business of the man who does not need to
It
—
earn his living and who is therefore free to perform all func-
tions public and private whereby he could diversify and ennoble
his life; free to live more abundantly. Their business was the
business of the soldier and the ruler, of the sportsman, the con-
noiseur, the athlete, the orator and the philosopher. It consisted
— Aristotle said —
it in the enjoyment of leisure which is better
than occupation and is the end, being the practice of the “liberal
arts,” the achievement of “pleasure, happiness and the delight
of living.” By contrast, labor, useful or not, is painful, ignoble,
inimical to the virtue proper to free men. By contrast, labor is
the activity appropriate to slaves; it is a means only, never an end,
and its nature is, ever to serve leisure. The laborer is a slave by
nature, by nature incapable of freedom. The laborer is a tool with
life in it, even as a tool is a lifeless slave. The laborer is to be
trained in his useful function as an animal is trained or a tool is
six work-days of the creation that the Creator blessed ; it was the
seventh, the Sabbath, that God blessed and sanctified, “because
in it he rested from all his work which God created and made.”
And Heaven, consequently, is one eternal Sabbath. In the life of
man, again, it was not in the Garden of Eden that Adam ate his
bread in sorrow and earned it in the sweat of his face. God had
created Eden to be the happy habitation of the first man and the
first woman. The economy of Eden was an economy of abundance,
and life in Eden was life without labor, a consumer life, all free
activity bringing pleasure, happiness and delight in living. But
God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree
It altered the inward nature of Adam and Eve, And this corrupted
pelled Adam from the abundance and leisure of Eden “to till the
ground whence he was taken.” Because of it, God laid a curse upon
Eve to bring forth her children in sorrow. Because of it, God laid
a curse upon Adam, to eat his bread in the sweat of his face, to
win his bread from a now condemned earth that would bring forth
for him “thorns also and thistles.” In sum, labor is a curse,
leisure is a blessing. Labor is a sentence for sin which we work
out on an earth whose abundance has by that sin been corrupted
to scarcity. Labor is a consequence of evil, itself an evil, made
necessary by sin ; labor is the price which most of us pay for sur-
vival in a world where we must work or perish. By contrast, lei-
sure is a state of innocence, of the free and joyous functions of
all our powers whereof consists the life more abundant. The good
life is not the laborious life, but the contemplative life, wherein
we may see God and enjoy him forever. The state of labor, thus
CONSUMER COOPERATION—FREEDOM OF MAN 219
The principles that the workingman must be a free man, that labor
has dignity —even a nobler dignity than leisure — follow from
the articles of faith in this American-born charter of equal liberty
for all the billions of different men and women who people die
earth.
human beings who are cut off from living any life because noth-
ing of their lifetime is spared from earning a living. They affirm
that the workingman, no less than the gentleman, is a consumer
by nature; that his natural goal is leisure, not labor, freedom, not
bondage; that he becomes a producer by necessity and that he
220 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
strives all his life to unshackle himself from this necessity. Else,
why the struggle to devise “labor-saving” devices? Why the honor
and gratitude to inventors of such devices? Why the efforts of
labor-unions ever to raise wages and reduce hours, that is, to
increase leisure and the possibility of consumption? Indeed, what-
ever may be a modern man’s professions regarding “the dignity
of labor,” his practices confirm the judgment passed upon it by
both the humanities and the religion of our civilization. John
Mitchell and Ira Steward, speaking for the liberation of the un-
free multitudes from want and from fear regarding things and
thoughts, simply harmonized, each in his own way, profession
with practice. They reaffirmed the primacy of the consumer.
The principle of the primacy of the consumer expresses the
innermost nature of the human creature. It embodies the truth
about all the freedoms he gropes after and labors for to the end
of his days. We are born consumers and consumers we remain
all our lives. But in most of us, the society we live in overlays
the consumer we are bom as by the producer it compels us to be-
come. By original nature consumers, and producers only by nur-
ture, nevertheless we must, most of us, produce or perish. Not
many may all their lives consume without producing, while too
many must all their lives produce without consuming, produce
consuming only enough to keep them producing. And every soul
of those unfree multitudes dreams of the day when he may be
purely a consumer again; every sold struggles to be freed of the
chain gang of production in which survival shackles him.
Imagine the years of any such man who must earn his living,
as he spends it from the cradle to the grave. As a babe in arms he
produces nothing. He is absolutely a consumer. He is fed, clothed,
sheltered, amused and defended. His needs are served, his wishes
gratified, his activities encouraged and praised. He is protected
from the consequences of his mistakes. His life is the life of
Riley. He grows into childhood living his life without needing to
earn his living. As his powers develop, his environment is en-
CONSUMER COOPERATION—FREEDOM OF MAN 221
of his stops. The fourteen year old must now earn his living. He
gets a job on a farm, in a factory, in a shop. He spends his day
repeating a few single, simple actions in which his work consists.
is natural when what he does to earn his living and what he does
to live his life are not separate, but How together in such a way
222 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
that the freedom and the pleasure of nightlife are felt in the
means and its ends flow together in such a way that even though
they are distinct, they are not different. A life is natural when work
yields the same feeling as play, and play is as productive as work.
A life is natural when production and consumption flow together
and are not to he separated.
Thus, it is not natural, for example, either to eat to live or to
live to eat. It is natural to enjoy living as eating, and to take de-
light in eating as living. Rightly or wrongly, the farmer’s ex-
istence is supposed to possess this naturalness. Yet his life, too,
continue producing. But if those were all his money could buy, he
would indeed be no more than a tool with life in it. To be a free
man, he must be able to exchange his money, not for producer
goods only, but for consumer goods, material and spiritual: not
only for work-clothes, but leisure clothes — clothes for church,
for parties, for political meetings; not only for a farm truck but
a passenger car; not only for manuals on farming, but for news-
papers, magazines, books, radio, an occasional motion picture,
a play or concert; for something to risk on the races, at checkers
or at bridge; or a baseballgame; for hunting and fishing in the
season; not only for good bams, but for a good school and good
teachers for his children; for a well-built, well-appointed house
with adequate plumbing and heating and good furniture to be his
home. Obviously, a consumer are many and varied
his interests as
in kind and quality, his interests as a producer are of one kind
and few. Yet, as a rule, his mind and heart are concentrated
on the narrow arts of production. From sunrise to sunset, and
CONSUMER COOPERATION—FREEDOM OF MAN 223
Then, when he has his money, he, for the most part, continues
to leave the art of spending and using, which is the art of con-
sumption, to shift for itself. Through his working day, from
morning till noon, from noon to night, our farmer burns his ener-
gies in his hard labor. When he stops for lunch, the food he eats
is merely so many calories of fuel which his working oxidized
into fatigue products and which his meal replaces. He bolts his
bread and meat and pie; he gulps his coffee; he snatches his
smoke. He is scarcely aware how his food has tasted. He has
no effective interest in how it was served. The food only stokes
the labor-expending animal engine, restoring its “horsepower.”
It does not feed the human being.
For the human being cares about exactly those qualities which
the animal engine, the labor-expending organism, the wage-earn-
ing or profit-seeking producer must needs disregard. But the
laborer, the producer, is not freed to be a man again until the
day is done and the day’s work is over. In this respect, the fac-
tory worker is far worse off than the farmer. His life is far more
unnatural. On the job he is not a man with a proper name, but a
“hand” with a number. His work is not varied like the farmer’s,
nor does he have Ae mobility of the farmer. His tools are not
moveable like the awl of the shoemaker or the needle of the
tailor,which those craftsmen take up or put down at will. It is
the “hand” which is moveable, and attached to a stationary ma-
chine like any other attachable and detachable gadget. If that
man is a tailor who makes a whole suit of clothes, and that man
is a shoemaker who makes a whole pair of shoes, the factory
The supper they sit down to may consist of exactly the same dishes
they ate at noon. But their food is not just so many hundreds of
calories to be swallowed but not savored. It is now an exciting and
delightful combination of sights and flavors and scents and tex-
the dishes it is served on, the knives and forks and spoons it is
taken with, feed the eye and the hand with si^t and touch as
much as the fragrance, tJie taste, the chewing and digesting please
the palate and comfort the body. Communion with others, table
talk, music or news on the radio, may accompany the meal. Com-
pared with the noonday event, this meal is eaten without haste,
lingeringly, and the qualities of each dish may be discussed like
the contents of a good book, or the events of an exciting game or
movie or play.
This how we take our meals as human beings, that is, as con-
is
IV.
variety, the range and the meaning of each man’s interests as con-
mobilized and set to work; where none survives, men and women
trained elsewhere can be sent in. Rehabilitation can be thus initi'
ing faith to the peoples and the governments of the United Na-
tions — ^the faith that the economy of consumer cooperation, based
upon management by, of, and for the forgotten men of the world,
can channel all the liberties of man into the structure of lasting
peace.
Should this be fulfilled, even in part, future historians might
well regard the rules of Rochdale a more momentous forwarding
of freedom than Magna Charta.
VI.
Liberalism in Crisis
VL
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS
by
Rubin Gotesky
ceive his just due and reward, given time. Special privilege was
coming to an end. No one was to be denied the opportunity of
reaching for the highest honors possible. Terror, brutality, ex-
231
232 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
ploitation, cruelty,unreason and war were no longer to be the
prime instruments of government. Morley, at the pinnacle of
this optimism, wrote eloquently of compromise as the golden rule
ize that it is still, after analysis, the most hopeful and the most
rational interpretation of the life of man which was ever devel-
oped by man. And even if its demise is certain, it may give hope
to those who think not in terms of the narrow limits of a single
lifetime, but from the broader horizons of social epochs, that it
of — meaning
God” by “people” only the well-bom, the well-
placed — should finally have evolved into the modem idea of the
people as all the members of a society or state. By what manner
of means did the doctrine of natural rights on which feudal society
so solidly rested become the foundation-stone on which was built
the superiority of capitalism over feudalism?
Most writers usually go back to the seventeenth century for
the origins of liberalism, but they are found in primitive flower*
form in the ancient maritime commercial cities of Greece and
its colonies. As Gilbert Murray points out, the Greeks were the
first to establish the first two great principles of classical liberal-
ism: — ^freedom of thought and political freedom. Admittedly
these great liberal principles were available in practice only to
Greek citizens and the leisure classes; and they were never ex-
tended even in principle — there *6 no question of social practice
— vertically to include all men or horizontally to include all na-
tions and stales. Yet the establishment of these principles as rec-
ognized rights of the ruling classes produced during a period of
six centuries a radical transformation in the understanding of the
world and of man whose effects continue to be felt even to the
present day.
Judo-Christianity, even though it began as an otherworldly,
anti-rationalistic, anti-naturalistic movement of the oppressed
classes, contributed its share directly and indirectly to the tenets
of. liberalism. Indirectly as a lower class movement antagonistic
to pagan civilization, it helped to undermine slavery. Directly,
through the dogmas of the spiritual brotherhood and equality of
man before God and of the Universal Church, it provided the
ideological seeds for the extension of politicj^l and religious free-
doms horizontally and vertically. Yet the universalization of poli-
tical and religious liberty were not so much the product of the
feudal Church as of the simple against it.
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 235
was he, too, who defended in its most extreme form freedom of
thought and expression. The struggle of the Protestants in France,
Germany, and particularly in England against Romanism and a
state-dominated religion led to the formulation of a concrete doc-
trine of religious freedom classically expressed in the Tracts of
John Lilbume, Leibniz, Locke, Spinoza, Hobbes, Newton, Har-
vey, Gassendi, Gallileo — to name a few — ^influenced by and in-
But besides these problems for which some sort of answer was
discoverable among the ancient writers, all sorts of new problems
arose which were unknown to the ancients. Thus, in the course
of ten centuries, beginning from the ninth, a bewildering variety
of political institutions from military autocracies through eccles-
iastical oligarchies to direct democracies made their appearance,
each contributing in one way or another to a clearer understand-
ing of the nature of political institutions, their origin and devel-
opment. Between cities, too, an equally astonishing number and
variety of leagues, alliances, federations were created in order to
solve problems of monetary standards, commercial exchange, cre-
dit, inter-city disputes, piracy, war, pillage and robbery.
Ultimately as capitalist, economic relations dominated and
came more and more in conflict with feudal or transitional eco-
n
THE BASIC TENETS OF LIBERALISM
wealth was to be spent. And certainly they could find little reason
for supporting the king, his army and clergy who were so often
used against them.
Hobhouse remarks that fiscal liberty is obviously inseparable
from political liberty and its corollary, the sovereignty of the
people. But we shall find that all the liberties which become the
substance of liberalism are indissolubly related to political liberty
and popular sovereignty.
Both fiscal and civil liberty, as first developed in the anti-feudal
struggle, were specifically related to property and the rights of
their owners. The middle classes wanted no discrimination against
their property and persons; they wanted laws concerning prop-
erty and persons of property which would apply equally and im-
partially to all; and they wanted above all to determine how much,
how, where and on whom their money were to be spent. In es-
was the struggle for their actual
sence, the struggle for these rights
existence.They realized that without them, their .years and days
were numbered and at the disposal of those who wanted to exploit
and despoil them. It was inevitable, therefore, that the rights of
property should be exalted above all other rights and that their
legal establishment as inalienable should be the hub around which
all society had to revolve.
worship. Hobhouse does not state that this tenet meant and still
means to many, not the right to believe in any religion or to wor-
ship in any way, but the right to believe in only those religions
which are approved by the majority of the populace.
The fourth he calls social liberty. This means that hereditary
advantages or disadvantages like birth, wealth, color, race or sex,
should not bar men or women from the enjoyment of social rights,
privileges and opportunities. In principle, this is not social lib-
economic.
As indicated before, the selection of these subordinate prin-
ciples under the heading of economic liberty is not done in the
interests of logic but of history. The middle classes specifically
struggled for these principles as part of their struggle against
feudalism. It was not a question for them of logical classification,
but of existence. The feudal state placed all kinds of restraint
and fiscal liberty, even though these latter were just as intimately
related to the economic process as buying and selling or money-
lending and borrowing. The right of association, too, was inti-
tion again is not a case of freedom but a coercion upon the child,
imposed upon it for its own good, on the assumption that it will
ultimately increase its area of total freedom. The fact that chil-
dren may not want to go to school has as much to do with this
right as the fact that they may dislike taking disagreeably tast-
ing medicines when they are sick.
The seventh area of liberty is both administrative, geographical
and racial. As the middle classes grew in power, they found them-
same thing as racial freedom, not that the one has not been inter-
fused with the other. Still it ought to be clear that the equality of
all races to be slaves is not identical with the freedom of all
races. The freedom of races involves such questions as the right
to intermarry, to choice careers, to determine their political fate,
to develop different cultures, ete.
International liberty is the eighth tenet of liberalism. In es-
sence, Hobhouse insists that liberalism is opposed to the use of
force as an instrument of national policy or to militarism (arma-
244 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
ments). Undoubtedly, the expansion of capitalism over wider
and wider areas of the globe has intensified the medieval realiza-
tion of the futility and destructiveness of war. In one sense, capi-
talist expansion —
the development of a world market and an in-
ternational division of labor —has Ifed many leading members of
the middle classes to a realization of the need for international
organization, a world federation of states. To keep goods flow-
ing uninterruptedly from one part of the world to another; to re-
move the political and other barriers in the way of an efficient de-
velopment of world resources, capitalism needs peace and inter-
m
.THE UBERALISM OF MILL
which men would be free to think their own thoughts and live their
own lives. Poverty would disappear along with tyrants. Men
would learn how to control nature and their own evil dispositions
248 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
in accordance with God’s original intention. These dreams were
dreamed by men who knew the worst of the feudal system; who
had suffered from its disease, ignorance, brutality, lechery and
exploitation; wbo, impressed with the enlightenment of the Greeks
and the progress of the new natural sciences, thought that this new
knowledge could be used to destroy these institutionalized, tra-
dition-sanctified evils.
The long struggle for victory from the 15th to the 18th cent-
ury brought new evils into existence —almost continual warfare;
universal impoverishment; epidemic starvation; social chaos. For
some like Hobbes, these new evils brought disillusionment with
'the new world and so they sought to find some satisfactory com-
promise between the old and the new, although unknowingly, their
efforts led them to undermine the intellectual and moral founda-
tions of the old. Others lived only in the fond hope that the evils
of their day would disappear in the blessings of the future.
The final victory of capitalism in the latter part of the 18th
century, however, revealed that many of these new evils in a new
form, had come to stay. Poverty was not to come to an end; it
plenty, the poor died of starvation. The rapacity and greed of the
middle classes, therefore, stood revealed in all their gouty naked-
ness. Neither drought nor frost nor fire could be used as excuses
for hunger nor ignorance of medical science and the will of God
for disease. The law and the state, stripped by 18th century mid-
dle-class criticism of their religious sanctity, could be clearly seen
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 249
—
poor in obedient subjection to their exploiting rulers.
The reaction to these disillusioning discoveries followed various
directions, depending upon class interest, knowledge, character
and experience. Among those who continued to live in the tradi-
tions of radical capitalism, these evils were looked upon as tem-
porary; leftovers, in part, of a previous world; consequences, in
the main, of a failure to clarify the essential ideas upon which
capitalism stood. They therefore, concerned themselves with
clarifying principles, writing and agitating for reforms in the
of land; the doing away with all state interference in the hiring
and distribution of labor, and of tariffs which interfered with
the free exchange of goods in foreign trade.
—
vince the middle classes that their best advantage was served by
following a policy of Laissez-faire in every department of eco-
nomic and political life.
Cobden was not an opportunist. He did not seek his own im-
‘
mediate gain. He was concerned only with the welfare of society,
and he sought to bring peace and prosperity to the farthest cor-
ners of the world. Blinded by his own uncritical faith in the mid-
dle classes he saw them as the means by which his world vision
would be achieved. The middle class and particularly the up-
per bourgeoisie ultimately repudiated him, or rather pushed him
aside as an impractical idealist who wanted, unattainable things.
lowed by any government. How could man rectify his errors and
see the truth, unless he were made aware of the arguments, pro
and con, by means of which he could interpret the effects of
policies upon himself?
Thus the belief in liberty for all man capable of reason and
learning from experience, inevitably had to be one of the cardinal
tenets of liberalism. But what this really meant in social practice
and how it is to be practically effectuated was the most crucial
problem of the nineteenth century and is of the twentieth.
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 253
come to see that these reforms did not basically alter the condi-
tions of life for the vast majority. Already in Utilitarianism he
had recognized was technically capable of providing
that society
the essential elements of a happy life which he considered were
found in a proper combination of variety and security. In his
early years when associated with English radicalism, he was large-
ly concerned with the clarification of the principles of political
democracy; he did not feel the need to analyze in detail the con-
ditions which made democracy an actuality in the lives of
political
men. Later on he became aware of socialist criticisms, particularly
258 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
those of Fourier, Considerant and Louis-Blanc (the writings of
Marx apparently were unknown to him.) They made him realize
that the question of property and its control was the pivot around
which the political liberty of the masses revolved.
Thus, he set himself shortly before his death the important
task of writing a critique of socialism in order to determine the
extent to which the arguments of socialism were justified. He
never completed this work but even in its incomplete form, there
can be no doubt about his essential conclusions. He considered
the basic arguments of socialist critics of capitalism to be essen-
tially true. Capitalism, he agreed, had no moral and intellectual
justification for its widespread poverty; its system of rewarding
individuals; the incredible waste of human beings, adulteration
of goods and general inefficiency of operation. Secondly, he ad-
mitted that economic enterprises in which competition had ceased
to be an important factor for improving efficiency of production
and the quality of goods and for lowering prices are to be managed
and controlled by the state. Thirdly, he admitted that it was high
time that something was done to establish adequate wages and
universal education, and to remove by law the inequities of birth
and wealth and to provide adequate means for the proper utili-
matists, they have been verified to the hilt in the twentieth century.
must be understood that Mill did not argue against the estab-
It
tieth century.
Mill did not provide answers to all the problems which man-
kind has had to face since his death; but his mode of analysis,
his anxiety to study the facts and the perserverance with which
he studied them, and his search after principles and concrete tech-
IV
or utopian believed with Cobden and Bright that the middle classes
could create a just and free social order. In other words, liberal-
ism after the 1870’s gained a popularity with the masses in the
did not act upon it; and those which might act upon it often denied
kinship.
If liberalism was no longer clearly identifiable with any one
political movement; if it was beginning to stand for
politically
was even more true of the grow-
a thousand, different things, this
ing numbers of non-party individuals who after 1870 began call-
ing themselves “liberal.” Their liberalism was highly individ-
ualized, so highly individualized in fact that no one could know
what any man jirofessed from the mere fact that he called himself
a liberal. He might mean that he preferred reason to sentiment
or the very opposite. He might mean he was a thorough-going
follower of Cobden and Bright or a partisan of Marx. In short,
a “liberal” could mean anything from an arch conservative to
an arch radical.
The failure of Utopianism, however, did not mean the death
of the socialist ideal or the rad of the socialist movement. It
meant only that socialism had to find a new theory and a more
practical direction. Despite the considerable improvement in the
living conditions of the vast majority in the capitalist countries,
•LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 265
ence among the working class and the lower middle classes of the
world. Its nearest competitor was anarchism which had a large
following among the proletariat and peasantry of the least eco-
rights which it had won foir itself and enjoyed. It was dominated
—
by one motive and one ideal only ^the making of profit. For the
sake of profit, it would sell Heaven to Hell or Hell to Heaven;
it recognized no morality, no justice other than the morality and
justice of profit.
Thus Marx considered liberalism primarily a theory of the
justification of the absolute rights of capital over labor, of capi-
as they could go, for they were being extended to include all
classes. Under socialism, they might need only a reworking or
LIBERAUSM IN CRISIS 269
tions of the role of class and class interests in the making of funda-
mental changes in society. Even though the liberal often urged im-
portant reforms he nevertheless failed to ask who would be inter-
ested in bringing about these reforms. He acted as if all men were
sorts of radical changes; and these were the only classes which
could be appealed to to support any change, since they were the
only ones who were ready to make the necessary sacrifices. To
Marx, history had assigned this role in capitalist society to the
interests of all men were expressed. But state and ruling class
were inseparable; the state was the instrument by which one class
ruled over others. Thus no state could act in such a way as to
•serve the interests of all; and no class would grant other classes
the legal means by which it could be destroyed.
Before 1870, this criticism was, in the main, justified since
the political rights by which given classes ruled had not yet been
extended to all classes. Even though in America, all political
rights, in principle, were granted to all the citizenry, — thus to
all individuals whatever their social class — yet property require-
ments often restricted their use to a relatively small section of
the populace. Marx, therefore, could legitimately speak of the
state as being entirely the instrument of the propertied classes.
They were the only ones who had the legal right to form political
—
even the parties of the bourgeoisie were usually illegal and acted
illegally. Actually until events proved otherwise, Marx and En-
gels believed that if ever parties of the working class were granted
the same political rights as the bourgeois parties, this would mean
the end of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.
These criticisms — it must be repeated —
were not directed so
much against liberalism as against capitalism with which he iden-
tified it. And
it is true that liberalism, for a long time, was in-
tions of any kind would be imposed upon free speech or free press
or the right of organization other than those required to protect
reputations or maintain a high level of social decency. But was
it necessary to prepare the proletariat for the forceful conquest
of power? Was the modern state still purely an instrument of the
ruling class? Was the attainment of political power by the pro-
letariat by peaceful means out of the question? This was the issue
which divided the labor movement into factions until the First
World War, and after resulted in a world-wide, mortal schism.
The debate on this question was not limited simply to the re-
lation of political power to the modern state but involved, for
reasons not purely logical, the question of the soundness of Marx’s
law of the accumulation of capital.
That Marx’s law of accumulation of capital was not logically
involved can be seen from the various consequences which were
derived from it by different thinkers. Daniel De Leon, for ex-
ample, concluded that capitalism must inevitably turn into so-
cialism. The working class therefore must not fight for a better-
ment of their economic conditions, for if they won concessions,
they would lose interest in socialism. They would be content to
live in the swamp of capitalism rather than in the paradise of so-
cialism. But betterment of the workers’ conditions under capi-
talism, of course, is impossible. The law of accumulation of capi-
tal denies this. Therefore the task of the workers is to create their
own mass organizations and to prepare themselves for the time
when capitalist economy is ripe for socialism. Then the workers
will seize power by force. Why force is necessary, De Leon did
not explain. If the law was true, then, at this stage, the capitalists
would be so few and the working class so enormous and powerful,
there would be no need of force at all.
Others like Lenin argued that the law was a tendency alter-
able in its effect by the action of various economic forces. Thus
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 275
but considered that the socialist society would come about peace-
fully where democracy exists. Still others believed that the law
was only a tendency and therefore modifiable or even transform-
able and concluded that the establishment of socialism was possi-
ble only through the political action of the proletariat. They be-
lieved socialism was not the inevitable result of the workings of
the law of accumulation, but the united action of an educated pro-
letariat could make it inevitable.
These various interpretations of the possible consequences of
the law of accumulation of capital —each maintained with a con-
siderable show of logic —show that the law had no logical con-
nection with the question whether socialism could be achieved
by revolution or by evolution. Yet so high was the authority of
Marx that no arguments for or against either point of view could
be made without relating it to the question of the truth or falsity of
the law of accumulation of capital. Influenced by this high author-
ity, Bernstein tried to show that the predictions which Marx had
derived from the law were not verified in experience. The number
of capitalists were not becoming smaller; the misery of the work-
ing class was not decreasing; the capitalists were willing to make
concessions both economic and political to the working class; and
276 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
the working class, through its political parties and other organi-
zations, was gradually approaching the point where it could take
political power by means of the ballot. As for the capitalist class,
the reformists. In the period before the First World War, they
followed Kautsky, who was the main defense for the law of ac-
cumulation of capital. He was the most orthodox and learned
disciple of Karl Marx and his heir. Kautsky’s answer to the fact
that the predictions of the law of accumulation of capital had not
been verified was that Marx had not meant his law to be understood
in terms of absolute numbers but of percentages. He had not
meant that the absolute number of capitalists was decreasing, but
that the percentage of capitalists in relation to the percentage
of proletariat is decreasing. This was obviously so. While it is
between capital and labor must reach a critical point when the
proletariat will try by force to seize political power and capital
will act to prevent it. In preparation for this inevitability, the
capitalists must maintain permanent control of the armed forces
278 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
and the state apparatus. Thus the revolutionists maintained that
the facade of popular elections, parliamentary government and
civil liberties camouflages and is intended to camouflage the fact
that political power is at all times in the hands of the capitalist
class.
and the capitalist class was found to be much stronger than had
formerly been realized. The proletariat had disappointed them
and their disappointment was deepened by the fact that the prole-
tariat was so slow in taking advantage of its power. It had
should control the armed forces and the state apparatus. Thus
it made no difference in the essentials of class rule whether poli-
tical rights were widespread or limited solely to a class so long
as control of the armed forces and the state apparatus, i.e., the
bureaucracy, remained in the hands of the ruling class.
This new theory prepared the ground for the complete disillu-
cialism.
If the war seemed to the revolutionists a vindication of Marx’s
law of accumulation of capjtal, the victory of the Bolsheviks in
October 1917 seemed a further vindication of the same law but in
terms of politics. Socialism in Russia had not come about peace-
fully. It had required two revolutions: First, a revolution of the
Russian bourgeoisie against czarism and secondly, a revolution of
the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Only by seizing the gov-
ernment by force were the Bolsheviks successful in establishing
for the second time in history “a dictatorship of the proletariat.”
The revolutionists not many months afterwards pointed out that
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 283
and for which capitalism was now ripe: the revolutionary estab-
lishment of socialism.
VI
mercial capital and with the lower middle classes who wanted to
2«0 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
be protected from the rapacity of the upper middle classes. At this
point liberalism was not yet joined to the reformist socialists and
the reformist socialists still repudiated any connection with liberal-
ism. This was true even though leading liberal thinkers like T. H.
Greene, L. T. Hobhouse and Emil Faguet had begun to preach
a type of liberalism which was reformist socialism. After the
first world war disillusion with capitalism followed; and large
numbers of the urban lower middle began voting for the
classes
reformist socialist parties and increasing numbers continued to
flock to their banners.
Soviet Union.
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 287
became like Fascism all things to all people. During the period
between 1934 and 1939 when World War II began, the Bolshe-
viks gathered about themselves through the Democratic Front more
people from Western world than they had been
all classes in the
able to gather in the years between 1917 and 1934. But they
ruined their chances of conquering the Western world by entering
suddenly into a pact with Hitler that started World War II.
VII
TWILIGHT OF LIBERALISM
of an ideology speaking not for a particular class but for the broad
masses of mankind. Two currents merged more or less completely
into one during the 20’s and 30’s to form modern liberalism:
the current of political democracy which had been the battle cry
of the philosophical radicals, the utilitarians and those who spe-
cifically called themselves liberals and the reformist socialist cur-
rent in the labor movement which had its origins in Utopianism
and Marxism and stood for a radical transformation of the capi-
talist order. Thus modern liberalism is the final logical culmina-
tion of the drive of our liberal and socialist ancestors for a world
free of tyranny and exploitation. It is therefore a far cry from the
liberalism and socialism of the nineteenth century.
Yet at its peak of abstract perfection, modern liberalism is be-
ing defeated by a new kind of totalitarianism, Soviet totalitarian-
ism, which also has its origin in Marxism and also speaks in the
name of equality, liberty and the exploited majority. Paradox-
ically even though it speaks in the name of the highest ideals,
Soviet totalitarianism is introducing on a world scale a new kind
of inequality between men and a new kind of absolute tyranny
over man. Why, then, is modern liberalism being defeated?
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 291
apparently did not see that the hrain workers — the experts or
specialists — ^would become the leaders of the new totalitarian
socialist order.
nomically even though this cost their people dearly; the tendency
of more and more nations to break away from the doctrines of
free trade and to make unilateral economic agreements; and fi-
and practical plan for a democratic world order, would find Big
Business a powerful opponent of any such plan. And not only
Big Business; it would find provincial minded, isolationist lower-
class America an even more powerful foe. The typical American
— particularly he who has been overseas —wants to think Ameri-
can and nothing else.
leaders.
The worst element in the situation is the insufiiciency of time.
There is not sufficient time to educate the people in those countries
where freedom of speech still exists to the necessity of a world
order. The urgent necessity of creating a world order of some
kind and the irreconcilable differences between the Soviet Empire
and the West are bringing closer and closer the time of the begin-
ning of World War III. war did not destroy the world,
If such a
there might emerge at its conclusion some sort of world order.
Unfortunately, this war will not be fought with ordinary weapons
such as were mainly used in World Wars I and II. Such weapons,
however destructive, do not involve the annihilation of modem
civilization. Assuming the war were fought with ordinary wea-
pons, such as were used prior to the invention of the atomic bomb,
it might be reluctantly welcomed only because it might finish both
Soviet totalitarianism and nineteenth century capitalism. One
might look forward to a new age in which economic and political
liberty might actually be achieved to an extent never known be-
fore. Unfortunately, the weapon which is now at the disposal or
will be at the disposal of the warring parties is not an ordinary
weapon. It is the basic energy of the universe and it is annihila-
tory; its employment means the end of civilized life on earth
and the return of man in all probability to the kind of primitive
life he lived thirty or forty thousand years ago.
Obviously modem liberalism sits on the horns of a dilemma
invented in inferno. To oppose the coming conflict means to
strengthen the grip of Soviet totalitarianism on the world and it
garage.”
it promises all the exploited masses of the world
In other words,
the two things which they want most: equality and economic se-
EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
curity. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s population is colored
and nearly all of the colored peoples are exploited by the white
man. The vast majority of them are also considered inferior to
the white man in intelligence, general ability and culture. Even
though the colored peoples are, in turn, subject to exploitation by
members of their own races who consider them inferior to them-
selves, nevertheless there is a bond between colored exploiter and
exploited in that both want to he free of the white man’s burden.
Sovietism promises them not only this freedom from the yoke of
the white man but equality with him. Secondly, most members of
the human race, whatever their color, live a life of wretched
poverty subject to epidemics of starvation or disease, driven hither
and yon by their war lords, conquerors or exploiters, knowing
little of any outward security or peace. To them, the Soviet Union
promises the kind of economic security which they hunger for but
have never known. The promise of these two things, security and
racial equality, alone makes Soviet totalitarianism a mighty power
to he reckoned with in the affairs of the world.
Modern liberals who have lived their entire lives in an intellec-
tual atmosphere and in countries with a long-established tradition
of political freedom fail to realize how unimportant to the people
of this world is political freedom. These people have never known
freedom, they have lived all of their lives under some form of
absolute dictatorship and they consider no state different from
any other state except with respect to what it offers them economi-
cally. To the peasants of China, the pariahs of India or the fel-
lahin of Arabia and Mesopotamia, it is more important not to
be under the heels of the white man and to be sure of their rice
or bread than to be offered the finest democratic constitution in
the world. They have not culturally reached the point where
the relation of political democracy to economic security and ra-
cial equality can be appreciated. It might be observed that even
in the so-called civilized countries of England, France, Germany,
Italy and the United States, great numbers, including the intelli-'
The final picture which emerges from our analysis of the pres-
ent situation of liberalism is hopelessly tragic. It is the struggle of
Prometheus against the Totalitarian Gods. Liberalism offers the
basic principles of a philosophy by which man can become con-
'scious of himself and his needs and learn how to make maximum
use of his capacity to think, to feel and to do. Yet it can not be
made available to him; he has not time enough to become ac-
quainted with it, let alone to live by it. The confluence of forces is
overwhelming. There are the United States, most powerful of
nations, dominated by Big Business with nineteenth century ideas
and a people, unpolitical and provincial; a world of human
beings who care nothing about liberty and everything about equal-
ity and economic security which are unobtainable without liberty;
an economic technology which seems to involve a centralized hier-
archy of administrators pedestailed upon a vast horde of state
serfs; a totalitarian order, with its base in the Soviet Union, or-
ganized internationally for the conquest of the world; and finally
an atomic war in the oiling between totalitarian Soviet Union and
the rest of the world. Were there sufficient time, these forces might
not seem so overwhelming; each could be conquered in turn, and
even the worst enemy of liberalism, Soviet totalitarianism, might
suffer from an internal collapse, aided by liberal forces from the
outside. But time is exactly the one thing lacking.
Nonetheless, liberalism must continue its struggle against stu-
pidity, prejudice, ignorance and tyranny. And it must concen-
trate on finding the techniques by which a world can be made per-
manently free. These techniques may not be used for a long per-
iod of time; they may remain hidden in the ruins of libraries or
LIBERALISM IN CRISIS 305
covered with earth, and man may need to suffer through the new
Dark Ages before he will again seek the lost light. But if he sur-
vives and seeks again like Renaissance men before him, to regain
the arts and sciences of the Neo-atomic Age, then the ideals of li-
beralism and the techniques of social freedom should be ready
for him, buried in the crypts of an ancient civilization. If there
is nothing else that can be done, then this should be the final
Promethean gift. Amen!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Buokh, Ivan: The War of the Future, Eng., New York, 1899.
Bonab, James: Philosophy and Political Thought, 3rd ed., London,
1931.
Carnegie, Andrew: The Gospel of Weafth, New York, 1900.
Halevy, Eli: Growth of Philosophical Radicalism, Eng., London, 1928.
lloBHOUSE, L. T. Liberalism, London, 1911.
:
A. Herzen and
V. Soloviev
307
Editorial Note
3()9
VII.
by
Elias L. Tartar
The essentials of the libertarian doctrine are so well known
that a definition of the term is hardly required. It is a doctrine
which, since the time of Herodotus and even before him, has been
advancing, both in political practice and rational argument, the
proposition that a polis of isonomoi, i.e., a stale, with its citizens
equal before the law, is both possible and desirable; and, hence,
that tlie law itself could and should be the deliberate expression
of the sense and will of the persuaded citizenry of the polis.
The term isonomoi implies much that, since the Greeks, has
become familiar to us as the contents of the general liberal doc-
trine. It implies free discussion of political problems by the citi-
310
THE LIBERAL TRADITION IN RUSSIA 311
man.
martyrs.
It is interesting to note at this point that in his youth Radishtcbev
studied in German was thoroughly
universities and, therefore,
familiar with contemporary German and French literature and
philo.sophy. His teachers were Spinoza and Rousseau rather than
Voltaire and other “encyclopedists.” Thus, there is, on the one
hand, the unmistakable influence of older Western thought on
\new Russian liberalism. However, early in Radishtchev’s writ-
ings, there is also an indication of the native historical strain
Thus, not only the memory, but the actual reality of battles for
“ancient freedoms” survived well into the eighteenth century and
found expression in a body of moving songs, historical, peasant,
The result of those stirring events was not only the beginning of
the Golden Age of Russian literature (Pushkin, etc.), but also the
rise of the first Russian revolutionary movement, that of the “De-
cembrists.” Their revolt came to a bloody end in December, 1825;
some of its leaders were executed, the remainder were im-
prisoned or sentenced to exile. The revolt, however, left a deep im-
print on theminds of the Russian people; neither did they forget
and social problems of contemporary
the discussions of political
and future Russia expounded by such talented writers and De-
cembrist leaders as Pestel, Rylieyev, A. Bestuzhev, and others.
Two trends in their writings are of interest; first, a cleavage began
to form between the more liberal, decentralizing and federalist
wing, represented by Rylieyev, and the more Jacobinist, cen-
tralizing group, represented by Pestel. Some of the Decembrists
actually feared Pestel as a “future Robespierre.” Secondly, the
majority of the leaders agreed that the liberation of the peasants
from serfdom should he accompanied by granting them land. The
prospect of a vast, landless proletariat in Russia was abhorrent to
them.
Thus, the problem of economic justice, together with the prob-
lem of political freedom, was firmly grasped by the Decembrists
and incorporated in their ideology. The defeat of their move-
314 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
ment, the execution, imprisonment, or exile of its members, pre-
vented them from further elaboration upon their ideas. This tvas
accomplished later by their spiritual heirs in the next generation:
Here vre note how early Herzen became critical of both capi-
talism and “phalansterian” and “statist” Socialism. The prob-
lem of “the rights of the person” was always a preeminent con-
cern to him.
But, if the above is accepted, Western Europe, industrialized
and literate, should be the country of “future” Socialism. After
the defeats of 1848, Herzen began having doubts, and turned his
attention more and more to the young and rising countries, Russia
and America (U. S.) He may have been influenced here by de
Tocqueville, but in his Russian theories he was certainly influenced
by the tradition of “ancient liberties” of Russia, referred to pre-
viously.
Thus, Herzen had a larger political and cultural vision of
“Western” civilization —a vision which included the rising role
of Russia and America and the originality of their potential
contribution. He speaks of America with caution due, no doubt,
to his lack of data concerning that country; he spoke with assur-
ance, however, of the advent of the Russian revolution. He fore-
saw that would not be a mere political, bourgeois parliamentary
it
years.
Herzen’s views upon the relationship between political free-
dom and Socialism are no doubt clear to the reader, at this point.
If parliamentary-political democracy without economic justice for
After 1860, both the Russian radical movement and the Western
Socialist movement expanded, although on different scales. The
more impatient and aggressive elements in Russia pressed for
an immediate social revolution, “abolition of the state,” and,
generally, for Bakunin’s “irresistible conflagration.” They called
for a permanent peasant revolution. Some of these groups, like
that of Nechayev, were dictatorial and terroristic even within their
own organizations. Eventually, a definite Jacobinist wing (part
Bakunist, part Blanquist) developed, inspired by the capable
Tkachev. It was to be expected that such groups would view Her-
zen and his followers in Russia (Lavrov) as timid liberals and
mere “gradualists” in Socialism; Imt even the followers of the
320 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
more influential and erudite Chemyshevsky found Herzen too
moderate for their tastes.
cial and the Russian problem.” But the apostle of “the free per-
son” is opposed to professional revolutionarism, revolution for rev-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Herzen, A., Past and Thoughts (Kng. traiisl.); Polnoye Sobraniye
Sochineniy (Complete Works, in Russian; 21 vols.).
Labry, Raoul, A, I. Herzen (in French), Paris, 1928. '
Editorial Note
327
VIII.
328
EVOLUTION OF ANARCHISM AND SYNDICALISM 329
ism— at that time the panacea of nearly all radical schools —coupled
with the conspiratorial and insurrectionist tactics of Blanqui
and invigorated and embellished by the class struggle concept of
Marx and the “anti-statist” verbiage of Proudhon, expressed tlie
tained its hold upon a large section of the labor movement. This
is due largely to the fact that in that country the followers of
Bakunin had laid the foundations of the labor movement, thus
securing for the anarchists a lasting reputation as champions of
the workers’ cause. It may be added that the anarchists of that
country, whether they were conscious ol it or not, to a certain
extent represented the extreme left wing of the democratic- 1 il)eral
opposition to clerical semi-absolutism.
Bakuninism, for all its anarchist verbiage, had been at bottom
merely a sort of ultra-leftist variant of Marxism. (It must not he
forgotten that Marx, too, accepted the idea of a stateless society,
Communist Anarchism
and the general strike, and its substitution of the trade union to
the “free group” as the basis of a free, state-less society. The
class basis of this new departure was the antagonism of many
French trade union militants to the influence exerted by socialist
politicians over the labor movement. During a certain period
the undeveloped rudimentary stale of the French trade unions,
coupled with the discredit into which socialist political leadership
had fallen among many workers, enabled the anarcho-syndicalists
and the syndicalists without the anarchist prefix, to achieve as-
cendancy over the French trade unions and to inspire the emer-
gence of similar movements in other countries as well. However,
the very growth of the French trade union movement in which
(he anarcho-syndicalists held the upper hand, spelled the eventual
decline of anarcho-syndicalism. For that growth brought in its
called the final emancipation of the working class, and with his
approval of violence for the sake of moral uplift, so to speak.
Critics were not slow in pointing out that nothing short of reli-
gious fanaticism c-ould induce the masses to risk life or limb if no
prospects of immediate benefits were beckoning to them.® Sorel
was, no doubt, cognizant of this fact; and it was out of this reali-
zation that he advocated the “myth” of the general strike as a
which no longer ani-
substitute for traditional religious fervor
riat, p. 199).
As a result, Sorel turned to another group of men who, he felt,
were fighting with real fervor against the corruption and the de-
cadence of the bourgeois democratic republic. These men hap-
pened to be the pro-monarchist nationalists of the Action Frangaise
movement, who were the closest approach to what a decade later
the bourgeois republic. So in the end, a few years before his death,
he turned to Lenin, though in the past he had nothing but scorn for
those French —
revolutionists lliey were called Blanquists dur-
ing the Second Empire —who, in the name of socialism, advo-
cated dictatorial rule by their party. For in Bolshevism he saw,
at last, a force heroically and successfully opposing bourgeois
democracy, and he gave vent to his new enthusiasm in his since
famous “Plea for Lenin,” a chapter added to a later edition of
his Reflections on Violence.
Paradoxical as it may seem, Sorel’s adherence to Bolshevism
was not a mere whim of a wayward philosopher of violence. For
at about the same time that he hailed Lenin as the embodiment of
the proletarian revolution, most of the prominent old-time rev-
olutionary syndicalist militants, such as Pierre Monatte, Robert
Louzon and others, joined the French Communist Party whose ap-
^ It was thb short phase of his spiritual wanderings, coupled with his "myth”
—
theory and his glorification of violence, which gave the Italian Fascists ^many of
—
whom had come from the syndicalist camp the pretext for claiming Sorel as one of
the teachers of Mussolini.
EllROPKAN IDEOLOGIES
peal to ihe radical section of the French working class was prov-
ing irresistible in the early twenties — just as in the later forties,
for that matter. Apparently both Sore! and the syndicalist mili-
tants who ignored him, saw in Communism the potentialities for
a triumph of what they called the “proletarian elite”, composed
largely, if not exclusively, of ex-horny handed trade union leaders.
They were all headed for a bitter disappointment; for, after a short
honey moot* — Sorel had died in the meantime — ^the syndicalists
Sorel and his friends and followers Berth and Delesalle, as well
as the top leader of the electrical w'orkers’ union, Pataud, and
middle of the past century, when men like Marx, Proudhon and
Bakunin —and the .syndicalists as a rule were inspired by all
‘’‘Aiiarcho-Bolshevism”
For a while, during the early twenties, those among the “Lol-
shevizing” anarchists in Russia who were either unable or unwill-
ing to throw overboard all their anarchist past at one stroke, found
a sort of ideological refuge in a theory called “aiiarcho-holshe-
vism” which openly advocated a revolutionary dictatorship by
anarchists during the transitional period from capitalism to an-
archist communism. It was a frank reversion to that aspect of
Bakuninism which as a rule was ignored or denied by the later
anarchists. In most cases, however, “anarcho-bolshevism” proved
merely a short “transitional period” between anarchism and com-
plete acceptance of official Russian “Comnmnism.”
In Spain both the Russian Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and
the Spanish revolution and civil war of 1931-1939, had a niarketl
enon was to recur in the wake of the first world war when the
hordes of unemployed or underpaid professional or white col-
larworkers began to embrace, en masse, the Bolshevist gospel of
immediate anti-capitalist revolution. Long before Lenin, Machaj-
ski, a conspirator by temperament, hoped to initiate an interna-
tional, anti-capitalist revolution with the help of those then not
Rudolf Rocker
Ideolo^ of Anarchism
345
;!U> EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
masses oi' the people, prepared the way for the present political
and social reaction and befriended it in every way. It sacrificed
merely been the pacemaker for the great intellectual and social
reaction which finds its expression today in modern Fascism and
the idea of the totalitarian state, far surpassing the obsession for
power of the absolute monarchy of past centuries and seeking to
bring every sphere of human activity under the control of the state.
“All for the state; all through the state; nothing without the state!”
became the leitmotive of a new political theology which has its
ries started off from the individual and wished to limit the
state’s activities to a minimum. Democracy took its stand on an
abstract collective concept, Rousseau’s tvill, which it sought
to fix in the national state. Liberalism and Democracy were pre-
eminently political concepts, and, since most of the original ad-
herents of both did scarcely consider the economic conditions of
society, the further development of these conditions could not be
practically reconciled with the original principles of Democracy,
and still less with those of Liberalism. Democracy with its motto
of equality of all citizens before the law, and Liberalism with its
right of man over his own person, both were wrecked on the real-
ities of capitalist economy. As long as millions of human be-
ings in every country have to sell their labor to a small minority
of owners, and sink into the most wretched misery if they can
find no buyers, the so-called equality before the law remains mere-
ly a pious fraud, since the laws are made by those who find them-
selves in possession of the social wealth. But in the same way
there can also be no talk of a right over one’s own person, for
that right ends when one is compelled to submit to the economie
dictation of another if one does not want to starve.
In common with Liberalism, Anarchism represents the idea that
the happiness and prosperity of the individual must be the stand-
ard in all social matters. And, in common with the great repre-
sentatives of liberal thought, it has also the idea of limiting the
functions of government to a minimum. Its adherents have fol-
ANARCHISM AND ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM 349
classeh them?«elvt*s, will dissolve itself and vanish from the canvas.
For this concept, which completely mistakes the real nature of
the state and the significance in history of the factor of political
power, is only the logical outcome of so-called economic material-
ism, which sees in all the phenomena of history merely the inevi-
table effects of the methods of production of the time. Under the
influence of this theory people came to regard the different forms
of the state and all other soidal institutions as a “juridical and
political superstructure on the economic edifice” of society, and
thought that they had found in it the key to every historic process.
Ill reality every section of history affords us thousands of examples
ol the way in which the economic development of countries was
set hack for centuries by the state and its power policy.
Helore. the rise of the ecclesiastical monarchy, Spain, indus-
trially was the most advanced country in Europe and held the
first place in economic production in almost every field. But a
century alter the triumph of the Christian monarchy most of its
Anarchism.
Institutions serve the same purpose in the life of society as
physical organs do in plants and animals; they are the organs of
the social body. Organs do not develop arbitrarily, but owe their
origin to deflnite necessities of the physical and social environment.
Changed conditi<ins of life produce changed organs. But an organ
always performs the function it was evolved to perform, or a re-
lated one. And it gradually disappears or becomes rudimentary
as soon as its function is no longer necessary to the organism.
The same is true of social institutions. They, too, do not arise
arbitrarily, but are called into being by special social needs to
serve definite purposes. In this way the modern state was evolved,
after economic privileges and class divisions associated with them
had begun to make themselves more and more conspicuous in the
framework of the old social order. The newly-arisen possessing
classes had need of a political instrument of power to maintain
their economic and social privileges over the masses of their own
pe.jple, and to impose them from without on other groups of hu-
man beings. Thus arose the appropriate social conditions for the
evolution of the modem state as the organ of political power loi
the forcible subjugation and oppression of the non-possessing
classes. This task is the essential reason for its existence. Its ex-
ternal forms have altered in the course of its historical develop-
ment, but its functions have always remained the same. They hav«
even constantly broadened in just the measure in which its sup-
porters have succeeded in making further fields of social activities
subservient to their ends. And, just as the functions of a physical
ANARCHISM AND ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM 353
any fixed goal. The greatest evil of any form of power is just that
it always tries to force the rich diversity of social life into definite
tions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individ-
litical weakness, for political systems are always set upon the
mechanizing and not the organic development of social forces.
Slate and Culture arc irreconcilable opposites. Nietzsche, who was
not an anarchist, recognized this very clearly when he wrote:
“No one can finally spend more than he has. That holds good
lor individuals; it holds good for peoples. If one spends oneself
for flower, for higher politics, for husbandry, for commerce, par-
liamentarism, military interests — if one gives away that amount
of reason, earnestness, will, self-mastery which constitutes one’s
real sell for one thing, he will not have it for the other. Culture
and the slate — let no one be deceived about this — are antagonists:
the Culture Stale is merely a modern idea. The one lives on the
other, the one prospers at the expense of the other. All great per-
iods of culture are periods of political decline. Whatever is great
in a cultured sense is non-jMilitical, is even antipolitical.”
Where the iiiAuenee of political power on the creative forces
in society is reduced to a minimum, there culture thrives the best,
for political ruler.ship alway.s strives for uniformity and tends
to subject every aspect of social life to its guardianship. And, in
this, *it finds itself in unescapable contradiction to the creative
aspirations of cultural development, which is always on the quest
for new forms and fields of social activity, and for which free-
dom of expression, the many-sidedness and the continual changing
of things, are just as vitally necessary as rigid forms, dead rules.
ANARCHISM AND ANARCHO-SyNDICAJJSM 355
types. That has been the reason for all revolutions in history.
Power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing every
manifestation of social life into the straitjacket of its rules. Its
initiative at its birth and brings forth only sid)jects, not free men.
Freedom is the very essence of life, the impelling force in all in-
tellectual and social development, the creator of every new outlook
for the future of mankind. The liberation of man from economic
exploitation and from intellectual, social and political oppression,
with the immediate process of social evolution. This was done for
the first time by William Godwin (1756-1836) in his splendidly
conceived work. Concerning Political Justice and its Influence up-
on General Virtue and Happiness, London 1793. Godwin’s work
was, we might say, the ripened fruit of that long evolution of the
concepts of political and social radicalism in England which pro-
ceeds from George Buchanan through Richard Hooker, Gerard
Winstanley, Algeron Sidney, John Locke, Robert Wallace and
John Bellers to Jeremy Bentham, Joseph Priestley, Richard Price
and Thomas Paine.
Godwin recognized very clearly that the cause of social evils
is tobe sought, not in the form of the state, but in its very exis-
tence. But he also recognized that human beings can only live to-
gether naturally and freely when the proper economic conditions
for this are given, and the individual is no longer subject to ex-
‘
ANARCHISM AND ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM 357
tellectual and social life; it was his conviction that this evolution
could not be bound by any definite abstract formulas.
Proudhon opposed the influence of the Jacobin tradition, which
dominated the thinking of the French democrats and most of the
Socialists of that period, with the same determination as the inter-
35fl EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
fereiu*e of llic central state and economic, monopoly in the natural
which is fought out with tooth and claw, there exists in nature
also another tendency which is expressed in the social combination
of the weaker species and the maintenance of races by the evolu-
tion of social instincts and mutual aid. In this sense man is not
the creator of society, but society the creator of man, for he in-
herited from the species that preceded him the social instinct
which alone enabled him to maintain himself in his first environ-
ment against the physical superiority ot other species, and to
make sure of an undreamed-of height of development. This second
as is shown by the .steady retrogression of those species whose
tendency in the struggle for existence is far superior to the first,
have no social life and are dependent merely upon their physi-
cal strength. This view, which today is meeting with constantly
wider acceptance in the natural sriences and in social research,
the spirit of freedom and Socialism, the easier will be the birth
pains of new social changes in the future. For even revolutions
can only develop and mature the ideas which already exist and
have made their way into the consciousness of men: but they can-
not themselves create ideas or generate new worlds out of nothing.
Before the appearance of totalitarian states in Russia, Italy,
(rcrniany and later in Portugal and Spain, and the outbreak of
the second world war. Anarchist organizations and movements
existed almost in every country. But like all other socialist move-
ments of that period, they became the victims of Fascist tyranny
and the invasions of the German armies, and could only lead an
underground existence. Since the end of the war a resurrection of
Anarchist movements in all Western European countries is to be
towards welding the workers into a political party and were out-
spoken opponents of all trade union endeavors in which they
saw only a hindrance to the political evolution of the working
class. Marx and his adherents of that period recognized, it is
form of the social organism and could only attain practical ex-
pression in this. Its followers saw in the present national state ‘only
the political agent and defender of the possessing classes, and did,
therefore, not strive for the conquest of power, but for the elimina-
tion of every system of power within society, in which they saw
the requisite preliminary condition for all tyranny and exploita-
tion. They understood that along with the monopoly of property.
.'{OO EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
the inunu])oly ol power must also disappear. Proceeding from
their recognition that the lordship of man over man had had its
day. they sought to farniliariztt themselves with the administration
of things. Or, as Bakunin, one of the great forerunners of modern
Anareho-syndiralism, put it:
and hostile to the natural development (»f the interests and the in-
ished.”
And at another occasion: “All this practical and vital study of
social scietu’c by the workers themselves in their trades sections
and their chambers of labor will —
and already has engender in —
them the unaiiinums, well-considered, theoretically and practically
demonstrable conviction that the serious, final, complete liberation
of the workers is possible only on one condition: that of the
appropriation of capital, that is, of raw materials and all the tools
arc dealing nol only ihe idejis bill also llic I'acis ol' tlic future
itself ...”
After the decline of the International and the Franco-German
War, by which the focal point of the socialist labor movement was
transferred to Germany, whose workers had neither revolutionary
traditions nor that rich experience possessed by the Socialists in
the western countries, those ideas were gradually forgotten. After
the defeat of the ParisCommune and the revolutionary upheavals
in Spain and Italy the sections of the International in those coun-
tries were compelled for many years to carry on only an under-
ances. The result was the founding in the following year of the
Confederation Generate du Travail at the congress in Limoges,
which declared itself independent of all political parties. From
then on there existed in France only two large trade union groups,
the C.G.T. and the FMiration des Bourses du Travail, and in 1902,
at the congress of the Montpellier the latter joined the C.G.T.
the Labor Exchanges, Emile Pouget, the editor of the official organ
of the C.G.T. La Voix du Peuple, P- Delesalle, G. Yvetot and many
others. It was mainly under the influence of the radical wing of
the C.G.T. that the new movement developed and found its ex-
pression in the Charter of Amiens (1906), in which the principles
and methods of the movement were laid down.
This new movement in France found a strong echo among the
Latin workers and penetrated also into other countries. The in-
fluence of French Syndicalism at that time on larger and smaller
sections of the international labor movement was strengthened in
great degree by the internal crisis which at that period infected
nearly all the socialist labor parties in Europe. The battle between
the so-called Revisionists and the rigid Marxists, and particularly
the fact that their very parliamentary activities forced the most
violent opponents of the Revisionists of natural necessity to travel
along the path of Revisionism, caused many of the more thought-
ful elements to reflect seriously. They realized that participation
in the politics of the nationalist states had not brought the labor
movement an hair-breath nearer to socialism, but had helped
greatly to destroy the belief in the necessity of constructive social-
ist activity, and, worst of all, had robbed the people of their initia-
parties in every country. Those very parties which had once set
ducers which holds together the whole social structure and guar-
antees the existence of society. Only as a producer and creator of
social wealth does the worker become aware of his strength. In
solidary union with his followers he creates the great ])halanx of
militant labor, aflame with the spirit of freedom and animated
by the ideal of social justice. For the Anarcho-Syndicalists the
laljor syndicates are the most fruitful germs of a future society,
the elementary school of Socialism in general. Every new social
structure creates organs for itself in the body of the old organism;
without this prerequisite every social evolution is unthinkable.
To lliein Socialist education does not mean participation in the
power policy of the national state, but the eflfort to make clear to
the workers the intrinsic connections among social problems by
technical instruction and the development of their administrative
capacities, to prepare them for their role of re-shapers of eco-
nomic life and give them the mural assurance required for the
performan<’e of their task. No social body is belter fitted for this
purpose than the economic fighting organization of the workers;
it gives a definite direction to their social activities and toughens
their resistance in the immediate struggle for the necessities of life
and the defense of their human rights. At the same time it de-
velops their ethical concepts without which any social transfor-
mation is impossible: vital solidarity with their fellows in des-
liny and moral responsibility for their actions.
Just because the educational work of Anarcho-Syndicalists is
directed toward the development of independent thought and ac-
tion, they are outspoken opponents of all centralizing tendencies
which are so characteristic of most of the present labor parties.
Centralism, that artificial scheme which operates from the top
towards the bottom and turns over the affairs of administration to a
small minority, is always attended by barren official routine; it
’ Here are just few npiniiins of foreign Mirialisln of (liatinetion who had no
a
peri^onal eoniiertioiiwith ihe Anarehisl niovetnenl. Thus Aiiiiret, Oltniares, Professoi
at the University of C.eneva. said in an a<ldre.st. ahout lii.s experiences in Spain:
“In the midst of the fjvil War the Anarchists tiave proven tlieniselvea to he
political organizers of the first rank. They kindled in everyone the required sense
of responsibility, and knew how, by eloquent appeals, to keep alive the spirit of
sacrifice for the general welfare of the people. As a .Social Democrat 1 speak here
with inner joy and sincere admiration of my experiences in Catalonia. The anti-
capitalist transformation took place here without their having to resort to a dictator-
ship. The members of the syndicates are their own masters and carry on production
and the distribution of the products of labor under their own management, with
the advice of technical experts in whom they have eonfidenre. The enthusiasm of the
workers is so great that they scorn any personal advantage and are eoneerned only
for the welfare of all."
H76 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
ized workers in other countries, who put up with the policy of'
non-intervention of their governments that led to the defeat of
the Spanish workers and peasants after a heroic struggle of more
than two and one half years against the combined forces of Fran-
co, Hitler and Mussolini, a struggle which has been justly called
The weJl known Itaiioii professor Cario Kosselli, who was later assassinated in
France by agents of Mussolini, expressed his judgment in the following words;
“In three months Catalonia has been able to set up a new social order on the
ruins of an ancient system. This is chiefly due to the Anarcliisls, who have revealed
a quite remarkable sense of proportion, realistic understanding, and organizing
ability. . . All the revolutionary forces of Catalonia have united in a program of
.
which has hitherto been done by the workers in any part of the world.”
ANARCHISM AND ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM 377
tical struggle lies not in the legislative bodies but in the people.
Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are rather
forced upon them from without. And even their enactment into
law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. They
do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece
of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of
a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with
the violent resistance of the populace. Where this is not the case,
there is no help in any parliamentary opposition or any Platonic
appeals to the constitution. One compels respect from others when
one knows how to defend one’s dignity as a human being. This
is not only true in private life; it has always been the same in
political life as well. All political rights and liberties which peo-
ple enjoy today, they do not owe to the good will of their gov-
ernments, but to their own strength. Governments have always
employed every means in their power to prevent the attainments
of these rights or render them illusory. Great mass movements
and whole revolutions have been necessary to wrest them from
the ruling classes, who would never have consented to them volun-
tarily. The whole history of the last three hundred years is proof
of that. What is important is not that governments have decided
:i7it EimOPEAN IDEOLOGIES
to concede certain rights to the people, but the reason why they
had to do this. Of course, if one accepts Lenin’s cynical phrase
and thinks of freedom merely as a “bourgeois prejudice,” then,
to be sure, political rights have no value at all for the workers.
But then the countless struggles of the past, all the revolts and
revolutions to which we owe these rights, are also without value.
To proclaim this hit of wisdom it hardly was necessary to over-
throw Tzarisra, for even the censorship of Nicholas II would cer-
tainly have had no objection to the designation of freedom as a
bourgeois prejudice.
If Anarcho-Syndicalism nevertheless rejects the participation in
of the time. By direct action they mean every method of the im-
mediate struggle by the workers against economic and political
oppression. Among these the outstanding are the strike in all its
cal situations the general strike takes the place of the barri-
cades of the political uprisings of the past. For the workers, the
general strike is the logical outcome of the modern industrial sys-
tem, whose victims they are today, and at the same time it offers
AiNARCHISM AND ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM 381
them their strongest weapon in.the struggle for their social libera-
tion, provided they recognize their own strength and leam how
to use this weapon properly.
many years. For this reason they based the highest hopes on
the Russian revolution and saw in it the inauguration of a new
era in European history. In 1919 the Bolshevist party, which had
attained power in Russia, issued an appeal to all the revolutionary
workers’ organizations of the world and invited them to a con-
gress in the following year in Moscow to set up a new International.
Communist parties at this time existed only in a few countries;
on the other hand there were in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy,
Holland, Sweden, Germany, England and the countries of North
and South America syndicalist organizations, some of which ex-
ercised a very strong influence. It was, therefore, the deep con-
cern of Lenin and his followers to win these particular organiza-
tions for their purpose. So it came about that at the congress for
the founding of the Third International in the summer of 1920 al-
for the foreign policy of the Bolshevist state quickly made plain
to the Syndicalists that there was no place for them in the Third
International. For this reason the congress in Moscow decided to
the resolutions.
In October 1921 an international conference of Syndicalists
was held in Diisseldorf, Germany, and it decided to call an inter-
national convention in Berlin during the following year. This con-
vention met from Decemlter 25, 1922 until January 2, 1923. The
following organizations were represented: Argentina by the Fed-
eracion Obrera Regional Argentina, with 200,000members; Chile
by the Industrial Workers of die World with 20,000 members;
Denmark by the Union for Syndicalist Propaganda with 600 mem-
/VNARCHISM AND ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM 3«;i
U‘jvs; Geimany by
the Freie 4.^beiter Union with 120,000 mem-
bers; Holland by the National Arbeids Sekretariat with 22,500
members; Italy by the Unions Sindicale Italiana with 500,000
members; Mexico by the Confederacion General de Trabajadores;
Norway by the Norsk Syndikedistik Fsderasjon with 20,000 mem-
bers; Portugal by the Confederacao Genral do Trabalho with 150,-
000 members; Sweden by the Sveriges Arbetares Centarlorgani-
siilion with 32,000 members. The Spanish C.N.T. at that time was
(le Rivera and had sent no delegates, but they reaffirmed their ad-
has for its object, not the conquest of power, but the abolition of
every state function in social life. It believes that, along with
384 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
the monopoly of property, should also disappear the monopoly of
domination, and that any form of the state, including the dicta-
torship of the proletariat, will always be the creator of new mon-
opolies and new privileges; and never an instrument of liberation.”
With this the breach with Bolshevism and its adherents in the
various countries was completed. The I.W.M.A. from then on
travelled its own road, held its own international congresses, issued
its bulletins and adjusted the relations among the syndicalist or-
Editorial Note
The following two chapters on the peasant movement were
written by Mr. Victor Zenzinov, theoretician of the Russian radi-
cal peasant movement, also known as the Social Revolutionary
Movement, (SR), and by Dr. George M. Dimitrov, leader of the
Bulgarian Peasant Party and Secretary General of the Intemor
tional Peasant Union.
The Social Revolutionary Party was a broad, democratic
peasant and intellectual movement directed against Tsarist ty-
ranny, and toward a free and democratic commonwealth of Russia.
The Social Revolutionaries commanded the majority of the Russian
peasantry during the first stages of the Revolution, before the
Bolshevik minority succeeded in gaining control of the old Rus-
sian empire.
The Social Revolutionary Party was the historical Russian peas-
ant party; the Bulgarian Peasant Party, the party of the late Stam-
boliiski, is the historical democratic party of Bulgarian peasantry.
Both Mr. Zenzinov and Dr. Dimitrov are prominent in their move-
ments. It should be noted herein that, with the exception of Rus-
sian Social Revolutionary ideology, peasant ideologies in eastern
Europe were not particularly well-developed, and the peasant
movements had more of a concrete, practical program than any
real philosophy.
In his chapter. Dr. Dimitrov analyzes the ideologies of eastern
European peasant movements, known, in some countries, as “Agra-
rianism." Dr. Dimitrov employs the term “Agrarianism” for all
progressive peasant ideologies of the eastern European region.
There was not, however, any one accepted and recognized ide-
ology of the eastern European peasantry similar, for instance, to
Marxism. Nevertheless all democratic peasant movements had
political attitudes and programs which were remarkably alike:
393
394 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
radical land reforms, small land ownership, peasant coopera-
tives, social justice, economic and social democracy achieved
through democratic and cooperative peasant organizations, and
devotion to true democratic institutions. These principles formed
the core of almost all peasant programs and ideologies.
AGRARIANISM
by
George M. Dimitrov
liable dicta of the Agrarian ideology have been derived from prac-
396
AGRARIANISM 397
of the earthly world men employ the term life rather than that of
matter. Thus it would appear that Morley Roberts is quite cor-
rect to argue ibat “instead of history elucidating sociology, soci-
the death of the last ones. The instinct is active consistently" and
therefore it is the eternally alert and true agent of human life.
Bio-Cooperativisxn
Life does not always flow gently. It often fluctuates violently and
passes through great crises — revolts, wars, catastrophies, strikes,
tion from one state into another,^ but are simple deviations due
to factors obstructing a normal social cooperativism. In the social
process certain groups or strata, when conditions permit, tend to
manifest tendencies of unreasonable egoism which upset the har-
monious co-existence and social cooperation. But such a state of
^ Joseph Stalin. The Questions of Leninism, Mowow, 1939 (11th ed., in Ruasian)
p. 537.
»lbid.
AGRARIANISM 403
Bio-Materialism
H. B. Swope, Foreword to James W. Wise, Our BUI of Rights, New York, 1941.
406 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
als or oligarchies; therefore Agrarianism favors a republic that
coordinates freedom with social justice.
Agrarianism agrees that the economic is one of the fundamen-
tal factors in the individual and social existence of man. How-
ever, it holds that man and his initiative are equally fundammital.
Moreover, differing from historical materialism, the Agrarian
bio-materialistic view ascribes the social conflicts to the political
and production relationships rather than to the control of the
tools of production. It is not the primitive means of production
but the relationships between onmipotent slave-owners or feudal
lords and slaves tied to the land and deprived of rights that are
characteristic of the exploitation structures. The source of social
conflicts is not in the progress made in relation to the tools of pro-
duction but in the structure which accommodates privilege, ar-
bitrariness and the use of force. Not the control of the means of
production but the efforts of men to struggle for means of sub-
sistence and for freedom against stubborn irrational egoisms are
the source of social and economic crises, revolutions and wars.
Such crises are peculiar not only to capitalist structures but also
to those which claim a complete levelling in the interest of the
proletariat; the Soviet Union has supplied abundant proof in
this respect.
«/6W., p. 559.
p. 560.
408 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
of atomic energy and its applications were not aware of the con-
sequences of their work or that they were preortcupied with inter-
own and expectations
ests of their to derive tangible benefits for
progress. One may say, therefore, that he, rather than the means
of production, is the “most revolutionary element” of the social
complex. He does not reconcile himself with degradation and a
treatment which repudiates his human characteristics and require-
ments. He has reacted in the past and will react in the future with
all his energy against dominations and dictatorships, be they ex-
ercised in the name of capitalism or in that “of the proletariat.”
Once capital and the means of production have been taken from
the bourgeoisie and placed under the control of the state — that
is, “of the proletariat organized as dominant class,”’^** then this
“dictatorship of the proletariat” comes to dominate all other
classes in the same (if not more brutal) manner as the bourgeoisie
has done in the past. Dominations and dictatorships generate re-
exploited. The private right over the fruits of one’s labor is deep
in human nature — it is a biological characteristic.’’^ In his study
on Herbert Spencer, A. W. Bateson writes that “the only instinct
in our race which is sufficiently universal ... is the desire to ac-
cumulate property. . . This remark accords with the views of
the Bulgarian leader of Agrarianism, Stambolisky, that “the
preoccupation of man with the needs of the future is responsible
for the accumulation of wealth which is hut the primitive form
of private property.”^ If the principle of private property is
a fundamental manifestation of the human instinct, then no force
is capable of eradicating or suppresing it. “Against the instinct
the moat powerful intellect or combination of intellects will move
in vain.”“^ Private property is thus the condition of securing the
life of individuals and of perpetuating the species. It is one of
the requisites of human integrity and freedom. Possessing the
means of production, man is in a position first of all to rely on
himself and only then to depend on others. It affords him the ex-
perience of a sense of security in relation to the present as well
as to the future.
If the individual does not possess property of his own — if he
has to depend on others for his subsistence — regardless of whether
the structure is capitalistic or communist, bureaucratic — ^he is not
a free individual. He is keenly aware of the fact that the con-
ditions of livelihood are insecure and that he is being placed in
the position of a puppet in the hands of others. On the other hand
private ownership of the fruits of labor generates personal stim-
ulus and is primarily responsible for the productivity of labor.
tory, that the farmer should own his land which he tills and that
every one should own the home in which he lives. The fact of the
matter is that Lenin made use of the urge for private ownership
to win the revolution by promising the land to the farmers and the
factories to the industrial workers. It is the repudiation of this
promise that is the main source of the instability of Stalin’s re-
gime, that has been instrumental for the identification of the “dic-
tatorship of the proletariat” with brutal repression. Stalin him-
self is aware of the fact that the pressures for private ownership
in 1936 imposed a modification of the Constitution of the Soviet
Union. Thus, in spite of the decrees for socialization and for col-
lectivization of the lands, an attempt was made to meet these pres-
sures by means of the “private land-households” and the “suc-
cession in personal property.”*’’ The pressure of the kolhosnics
in favor of the supplementary private property expedient and
against the collective ownership of the kolhoses as originally in-
tended demonstrated unmistakably the potency of the tendencies
for private labor ownership of the land. As a matter of fact
Stalin himself has admitted that much publicly; “It would be a
mistake to think that since the kolhoses have been established so-
A, Andreev, Speech before the IBth Congress of the Bolshevist Party. Moscow,
1940 (in Russian), pp. 29-31.
414 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
visioned by Agrarianism — it is the most adaptable expedient for
the attainment of social harmony and the comparative equaliza-
tion of wealth. The cooperatives coordinate the economic initia-
tive of the individual with the social interest. By means of co-
operatives the small private economic units coordinate voluntarily
their efforts and means of production, retaining their own proper-
tiesand sharing in the control over the production, distribution
and exchange of the produced wealth. In this manner the ex-
ploitation of labor and of its fruits are eliminated, while the de-
Raiko 1v. Daakalov, The Strufsifle for Land^ Sofia, 1945 (in Bulgarian), p. 9,
iii edition.
AGRARIANISM 415
was restated into the following proposition: “from every one ac-
and quality of the labor invested and the results from it.”
AGRARIANISM IN ACTION
Bulgaria
ogy, wliinh, l<> hitii was soniatbiii^ laii^ibltt and mil —admirably
applicable in life.
Ibid., p. 14.
AGRARIANISM 421
stead of the old military insignia, the hats of the new labor heroes
carried the sign “Labor for Bulgaria.” Labor, freely and volun-
tarily given by every Bulgarian, became not only a right and an
obligation, but also an honor and a pride. Great, cultured and
ancient states sent special missions to small, youthful hut labori-
ous Bulgaria to study the brilliant organization of this unique
reformation. An exhaustive and detailed description of this epoch-
making reform and the results achieved by it is given by a for-
mer Russian minister, the socialist revolutionary Vladimir Iv.
Lebedev, in his two books The New Roadway and In the Land of
Roses and Blood,
Opposed to the speculative exploitation of property, the Ag-
rarian regime confiscated buildings which were used for specu-
lation and placed in them the families of workers of government
institutions. Simultaneously, however, substantial credits were
allowed for the construction of new homes. In one building sea-
son alone, entire new blocks sprang up in Sofia and thousands
AGRARIANISM 423
World War I the Allies had objected to the abolition of the dy-
nasty in Bulgaria.
For the first time in Bulgarian history, the people were their
own masters and held their destiny in their own hands.
All this, however, should not create the impression that there
were no mistakes or deficiencies in the administration of the state
by the Agrarian Government. On the contrary, there were many.
Particularly in the application of the newly created laws, diver-
gencies often assumed the form of provocation or sabotage on the
part of certain Government employees who were in sympathy
with the opposition. The Agrarian Union, as stated before, had
been called upon to assume the responsibilities of governing the
country while it was still insufficiently prepared for the job, espe-
cially at a particularly unfortunate time, after a national and
military catastrophe, and it had been compelled to make use of
the existing and largely corrupt corps of civil servants. That is
one reason why the divergencies mentioned above were mainly di-
rected against the Government itself and the new laws labelled
by the opposition as “Bolshevik.” The Communist Coryphees in
their turn, frightened by the fast evaporation of their influence
among the masses, declared the Government of the Peasants as
“counter-revolutionary” and launched a mad attack against the
Agrarian Union and Stambolisky himself. Partisan passions
boiled high. Government was merciless from
Criticism of the
right and left-wing parties alike, and to say the least, it was often
irresponsible.
However, to every unprejudiced and conscientious person it was
Yugoslavia
Rumania
Maniu and Mihaiache had maintained secret contact with the Al-
lies with the object of overthrowing the pro-German regime.
After the Germans had been disposed of, the Rumanian peas-
ants, headed by Maniu and Mihaiache, formed the back-bone of
the coalition Government in which the Communists participated,
in spite of the fact that they represented a very small min ority.
Relying on the support of the Soviet troops of occupation, in a
manner quite identical with the developments in all other So-
viet-dominated lands, the Communists lost no time in setting up
puppets, such as Peter Groza, in an attempt to suppress and an-
AGRARIANISM 435
Hungary
ing the peasants against the ruling class. “Hunger and misery
made me an Agrarian Socialist,” he told the court. And this is
what Socialism meant to him:
The future order for which I am fighting and for which I stand
accused of stirring up the people will be one in which only the
work done by the individual, the importance of that work and
its real value will assign to the citizen his importance in the
somety.®^
AGRARIANISM 437
Czechoslovakia
Poland
Finland
Conclusion
—
and material reality Free Land, Free Labor, and Free Private
Ownership.
Distant and often superficial observers are inclined to see more
profound differences between Agrarian organizations of more pro-
gressive social policies and ideologies —
such as the Bulgarian
AGRARIANISM 447
tions have appeared and grown will indubitably point out that
this is merely a question of a stage in evolution. The Bulgarian
Government.”
There exists no revolution in history which has been success-
fully carried out without the active participation of the peasants.
The Russian Revolution is a very outstanding example. Stalin
Soviet history also concedes that “the outcome of the civil war
depended mainly on which side the peasants would add their
weight.”**
Even more erroneous is Stalin’s assertion that the peasant
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Agrahian (The) Problem from the Baltic to the Aegean, London, 1943.
Agrarian (The) Reform in Czechoslovakia, Prague, 1923 (Reprint
from the Politika).
Andreev, A.: Speech before the 18th Congress of the Bolshevist Party,
Moscow, 1940 (in Russian).
Batkson, Wm.: The Biological Fact and the Structure of Society, Ox-
ford, 1911.
Bergson, Henri: U
evolution creatrice, Paris, 1909.
Bergson, Henri: Le pensee et le mouvant, Paris, 1941.
Buechner, a.: Energy and Matter, Sofia, 1931 (Bulgarian tr.).
Chernishevsky, N. G.: What to Do? Leningrad, 1936 (in Russian).
Constitution of the USSR, 1936. *
Croatian Peasant Party Council, Canada-. Constitution of the Inde-
pendent Croatian Peasant Republic, Hamilton, 1946.
Daskalov. Raiko Iv.: The Struggle for iMnd, Sofia. 1922 (in Bul-
garian) .
Dimitrov. George M.: The Fight foi Fieedom and Independence.
Sofia, 1944 (in Bulgarian).
Dimitrov, George M.: The Ideology and Fights of the Agrarian
Movement, Sofia, 1945 (in Bulgarian).
Engels, Friedrich: Anti-During, Paris, 1926 (French tr.).
Engels, Friedrich: Ludwig Feuetbach, Paris, 1932 (French tr.).
Engels, Friedrich: Origins of Family and Property, Sofia. 1927 (Bul-
garian tr.).
Evans, I. I.: The Agrarian Revolution in Roumania, Cambridge, 1924.
Fabre. Jean H. : Les mervilles de Finslmct, Par's, 1913.
Garnett, A. C.: Instinct and Personality, London, 1928.
Cide, Charles: Political Economy, Sofia, 1918 (Bulgarian tr. ).
Gross, Feliks: Ciossroads of Two Continents, New York. 191.5.
Gross, Feliks: The Polish Worker, New York, 1945.
Haeckel, Ernest; Les weiveilles de la Vie, Paris, 1907.
Hancock, Thomas: An Essay on Instinct and Its Physital and Moral
Relations, London, 1824.
History of the Bolshevist Party, abridged ed., Moscow.
Hodza, Milan: Federation in Central Europe, New York, 1942.
Hodza. Milan; Speeches and Articles, Prague. 1930 (in Czech).
lovANOVir. nRA(.OT..iliB; Teachers of Energy, Belgrad. 1910 (in Serb-
ian).
452 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
loVANOVic, Dracoljub: The New Antaeus, Belgrad, 1934 (in Serb-
ian).
Kojouharofp, C. D.: General Theory of Law and State. A review in
die “Tulane Law Review,” Dec., 1945.
Lebedev, Vladimir Iv.: The New Roadway, Sofia, 1923 (in Bulgar-
ian).
Lebedev, Vladimir In the Country of Roses and Blood, Paris, 1935
Iv.:
1923 in Serbian).
(in Russian), (first ed.
Lenin, Vladimir: Works, XIII, Moscow, 1938 (in Russian).
Lodge, Olive: Peasant Life in Yugoslavia, London, 1941.
Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1938 (in Russian).
Marx, Karl: Works, Moscow, 1935 (in Russian).
McDoucall, William: Introduction to Social Psychology, London,
1908.
Mincer, Tadeusz: The Agrarian Problem in Poland, London, 1944.
Mitrany, David: The Land and the Peasant in Roumania, London,
1930.
Nesnard, k.: La vie et la mart des instincts, Paris, 1926.
Paine, M.; Physiology of the Soul and the Instinct, New York, 1872.
Palouczi, Horvat G,: In Darkest Hungary, London, 1944.
Petkov, N. D.: Alexander Stambolisky, Sofia, 1930 (in Bulgarian).
Prenant, M.: Biologie et Marxisme, Paris, 1935.
Rek, Tadeusz: Peasant Movement in Poland, Lodz, 1946 (in Polsh).
Roberts, Morley: Bio-Politics, London, 1938.
Russell, Bertrand; Principles of Social Reconstruction, London, 1916.
Seton-Watson, H.: Eastern Europe, Cambridge, 1936 (2nd ed.).
Sorokin, P., Zimmerman, C. C., Galpin, J. Ch.: A Systematic Source
Book in Rural Sociology, Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press.
1930.
Stalin, Joseph: The Questions of Leninism, Moscow, 1939, 11 th ed.
(in Russian).
Stambolisky, Alexander: Political Parlies or Professional Organiza-
tions, Sofia, 1934 (3rd ed.; 1st ed. 1909), (in Bulgarian).
Stambolisky, Alexander; The Principle of the Bulgarian Agrarian
Union, Sofia, 1944 (in Bulgarian).
Swope, H. R. Foreword to James W. Wise, Our Bill of Rights, New
:
York, 1941,
Thucutt. Stanisias: Selected Essays and Autobiography, Glasgow.
1943 (in Polish).
Todorov, Kosta; Balkan Firebrand, New York, 1943.
Todorovic, L. V.: Sveslovenstvo, St. Radica, Belgrad, 1938 (in Serbian),
Todorov, Kosta: Alexander Stambolisky, Belgrad, 1930 fin Serbian).
XI.
Russian Peasantry
Hy
Vladimir Zenzinov
between the peasants’ toil and the soil they are tilling, and it is
set his horse to trotting but the peasant remained ahead of him.
Then he rode as fast as he could, but the wanderer remained just
beyond his reach. Finally Svyatogor shouted at the lop of his
voice: “Ho, wanderer! Stop a. moment! I cannot catch up with
45 .';
45f) EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
you though 1 am on horseback!” The stranger stopped, lifted the
small bag from his shoulder and set it on the ground. Svyatogor
approached the bag and tried to push it aside with his whip. It
did not budge but remained as though rooted in the earth. Svya-
togor seized it firmly with his hand but the bag did not move. He
dismounted, grasped the small bag with both hands and strained
until his white face became suffused with blood. In spite of all
very essentials of the people’s life. The spell of, and the bondage
to, the soil are of overwhelming magnitude. When the valiant hero
tried to shake them even imperceptibly, red blood covered his
face. Yet the people carry the load of these forces produced by
the soil with the greatest of ease as if they were carrying an empty
sack. It is hardly possible to give a more striking and graphic
picture of the relationship between the earth, the nursing-mother,
the primary source of human life, and the peasants who are till-
ing it. One could imagine no better description of the close ties
between the soil and the toil put into it ever since the beginning of
THE DESTINIES OF THE RUSSIAN PEASANTRY 457.
the North, East and South. In their wake followed warriors with
their swords, traders with their money bags and agents of the gov-
ernment. All of them in the main did no more than consolidate
the results of the peasants’ spade work.
It was the peasants who at first cemented vast spaces of the
boundless plain into Muscovite Russia and then became the bed-
rock of an expanded, united and powerful Russian state.
that way all the strata of the country’s population were deprived
of their freedom. The traders and craftsmen were bound to their
commerce and crafts which became their compulsory obligations
toward the Czar; the landowners became tied to the Czar and the
state as military and civil servants while the peasants, the over-
whelming majority of the country’s population, were bound to
the, landowners, on whose estates they lived, and were compelled
to toil for them and to get from their soil the means they needed
ant himself had to render to the same state. That is why, by the
way, the laws of the 17th century did not grant to the landowner
the right to deal with his peasants at his own discretion. Above
all, the landowner was deprived of the right to set his peasant
free. Though he belonged to his landlord, the Russian peasant
actually was the serf of the stale.
The Russian peasants suffered heavily under the burden of
this twofold serfdom (to the landlord and to the slate), and it in-
<-ited their wrath and thirst for revenge. This is borne out by the
mass revolts in the 17th and 18th centuries under the leadershij)
of Razine and Pugatchev respectively.
After the reforms of Peter the Great (in the 18th century) the
nobility was relieved of compulsory state service. The peas-
ants’ bondage, however, remained in full force and even was
tightened during the reign of Empress Catherine.
The first half of the 19th century was marked in Russia by a
succession of historic vicissitudes. Napoleon’s onslaught led to
the epic Patriotic War from which Russia emerged victorious and
THE DESTINIES OF THE RUSSIAN PEASANT'H\ 459
tangled until, finally, the knot had to be cut. In 1861 the aboli-
tion of the peasants’ serfdom was finally accomplished by the gov-
ernment of Alexander II. However, this government was sub-
jected to the unrelenting pressure of the land-owning nobility
which was clinging to the privileges it derived from the peasants’
seldom and which put forth every effort to preserve most of these
privileges. That is why the “Great Reform,” the emancipation
of the peasants accomplishedby Alexander II in 1861, did not
do away with the peasant problem in Russia. At that time the
problem at hand was whether plots of land should or should not
be allotted to the peasants at their emancipation. In other words,
should the peasants continue to carry on their husbandry on the
same plots of land on which they had toiled up to then or should
they be “set free” also from the soil, i. e., be deprived of the lands
they had tilled for generations? The solution adopted by the gov-
ernment in 1861 was a compromise. And the result was that the
460 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
majority of the peasants were allotted plots of land which were
too small for the development of a husbandry sufficient to live
upon. Considerable stretches of land that the peasants had tilled
before were taken from them and given to the landowners. In ad-
dition, the peasants had to compensate the landowners for the
plots of land allotted to them. The government issued “Redemp-
tion Certificates” which were given to the landowners, and the
peasants had to make “Redemption payments” which for a period
of decades were levied by the government as a special tax. These
installment payments proved too heavy a burden for the majority
of the peasants.
Most of Russia’s peasants were unable to satisfy their insati-
able longing for larger plots of land. That is why during the sec-
ond half of the 19th century also, Russia’s political thinking in all
the years that followed, beginning in the late 1890’8 and the early
1900’s until the very eve of the revolution in 1917, the adherents
of two ideologies, of -Populism and Marxism, fought relentlessly
for domination of the political stage.
The was the basic issue which split
attitude toward the peasants
these two currents of Russian social and political thought. The
Populists who, since the turn of the century, were represented by
the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (founded in 1901) remained
true to the traditions of the progressive school of thought. They
maintained that the peasant problem continued to be Russia’s fun-
damental social and political problem and that it could only be
solved by placing all the available land at the disposition of those
who would till it. Prohibiting the sale and purchase of land as
a marketable commodity, its socialization on a nation-wide scale
and making it available to all the people who would work it; that
was the program of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, cut down to es-
sentials. The Marxists did not share this view. They held that,
in the political program, the labor problem not the peasant prob-
lem, the interests of the proletariat not of the peasants were to be
emphasized. In their opinion, Russia like all the other European
countries had embarked upon developing a capitalist economy.
Consequently, the social and political program in Russia should
462 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
be similar to those of the European Social-Democratic parties. In
accordance with the Marxian doctrine, as they conceived and in-
terpreted it, they regarded the peasants as a class of small prop-
erty owners, of petit bourgeois. They, therefore, rejected the idea
that the transfer of land for useby the peasants or the toiling
masses generally would be a step on tbe road to social progress.
On the contrary, in their opinion the socialization of land would,
rather, impede the movement toward Socialism. The Social
Democrats were disposed to regard the peasants politically as
conservatives (“The idiotism of the peasant’s way of life”) and
in the field of social development as a backward group (“The
peasant’s anti-collectivist skull”). This was the viewpoint of both
factions, the Bolsheviki (i. e. the adherents of the majority of the
party convention) and the Mensheviki (i. e. those who sided with
the minority of the party convention), into which the until then
united Russian Social Democratic Labor Party split in 1902 (at
fine the basic principles of this reform in more exact terms. After
the Soviet government dissolved the Constituent Assembly by the
use of force it ignored the Assembly’s work. Yet, the Soviet gov-
ernment completely adopted the basic principles which were ad-
vanced by the Provisional Government, viz. that all the land should
be placed at the disposal of the working population and that the
unproductive landowners should be dispossessed without getting
any compensation. The Soviet government contributed absolutely
nothing of its own to the legislative work concerning the land re-
form. On
February 19, 1918, on the anniversary of the peasants’
emancipation in 1861, the Soviet government promulgated the
“Basic Law on the Socialization of the Land.” This legislative
act gave the de jure sanction to the de facto status which developed
among the lower strata of the population during the period when
the supreme power over the state shifted from the autocratic Czar-
ist government to the democratic Provisional Government and then
to the Soviets.
they were the source of money they needed for the payment of
taxes and the purchase of consumers’ goods. They soon realized
that the payment of taxes could be discontinued or that taxes
could be paid with the devaluated bills they had hoarded in huge
amounts and that the consumers’ goods they needed could no
longer be purchased on the city markets. It was only natural that
they lost every incentive to produce more agricultural products
than they needed for themselves. “It goes without saying,”
wrote Larine,
— “that such a shift in the crops planted in peasant
holdings cannot help resulting in a general lowering of the level
of Russia’s agriculture.”^
According to Bolshevist authorities,® in 1917 no less than
1,400,000 hired laborers were employed in European Russia’s
agriculture.During the revolution these hired workers became in-
dependent small holders who produced only the products they
needed for themselves.
As. a result of the agrarian revolution the non-e(Bcient and
effete small holding gained predominance in Russia’s agricul-
henceforth pursued.
According to the Soviet government’s plans the “Kolkhozy”
(the collective holdings of farms, collective farms) had to replace
the former independent peasant holdings (the communal as well as
the individual- ones) whereas the “Sovkhozy” (Soviet estates)
had to take the place of the former landlords’ estates. These two
types of agriculture holdings, first of all, are of different size.
A Collective Farm is placed at the disposal of and tilled by a
certain peasant community (or by the inhabitants of several
•
are hired laborers. They are paid wages by the state which is the
'<) Xcmle (On Land Problomb). of arlidut*, pi. t. pp. 819, Mohcow,
1921.
The destinies of the Russian peasantry 475
mained, and they had to use them collectively. In this way the col-
were to become actual “grain plants.” Yet, they did not directly
Horned •
•*
Walter Duranty, USSR, New York, 1944, rhopler 17, “Man-made Famine.”
i?8 EimOPEAN IDEOLOGIES
finite daily task. If he does not accomplish the standard daily
work, only a fraction etc.) of a “work-day” is entered
state. Then follow the numerous taxes (the general tax, the tax
for cultural purposes, the contributions to the Social Security
Fund, to the Air Defense Organization, the International Prole-
tarian Relief Fund and other “voluntary” contributions), the sal-
aries of the many Communist members of the collective hold-
ing managing board and the quantity of grain to be stored for
future sowing. The ])a]ance remaining after all these deductions
represents the real earnings of the collective holding. This quan-
tity of grain is divided by the sum total of the “work-days” regis-
tered for the past year. As a general rule, the products which
the collective holding partners earn during a year are sufficient
for their upkeep for 6 or 7 months only. The balance they must
obtain from the vegetable gardens near their cottages (the size of
such a garden does not exceed 1/4 ha)^ or else they are doomed to
a semi -starvation existence.
The picture would, however, not be complete if we failed to
point to the great difference between the prices which the state
pays to the peasants for the products they deliver and those which
the peasants have to pay for the same products when they pur-
chase them in the slate stores. A former Soviet agronomist who
was taken prisoner while he was lighting in the ranks of the Red
Army in the recent war reported the following prices for 1939:
^ I ha = 2.471 acicb.
mu EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
Truly, they are outlaws and slaves of the Soviet state. Can it,
therefore, cause any surprise that their attitude toward the pres-
ent collective holdings is one of fierce hatred? To them the con-
ditions of life in these holdings, certainly, are worse than those in
the times of serfdom, prior to the peasants’ emancipation in 1861 .
dividual holders. This was done with utmost speed and without
any arguments. In the course of one day everything was distrib-
uted and settled. According to the testimony of the above men-
tioned agronomist, it was amazing how quickly the system of
collective holdings disappeared without leaving any trace. When
the Germans arrived they found that all the land and all the im-
plements of agriculture were privately owned. ... It is highly
significant that the Germans restored the system of collective hold-
ings in the parts of Russia under their occupation. By means of
this system it was much easier to squeeze the grain from the peas-
ants. From the fiscal point of view the system of collective hold-
ings is much preferable and, in this regard, there was no differ-
ence between the Soviet state and the Hitlerite occupants. Re-
ports of the restoration of the collective holdings by theGermans
can be found in the Soviet publications as well as in the German
press.
The system of collective holdings inaugurated by the Soviet
- regime a longing among Russia’s peasants which they
instilled
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ScHWiTTAU, G. G. Revolutzija
; i narodnoye khozjaistvo v RossU ( 1917-
1921), Berlin, 1922.
Kliuchevsky, V.: Kura ruaskoi istorU, 5 lomov. Moskva, 1921-1923.
Kizewetter. a.: Kresluinatvo v istorii Roasii. “Krestianskaya Rossija,”
IMII, Praga, 1923 Z. Kpoznaniiu proisshedshego. “Russkaya Mysl,”
1923, V. III-V.
Editorial Note
4«5
CATHOLICISM AND POLITICS
by
Alfredo Mendizabal
those of the State, the Church had to assert itself in the State,
alongside of the State, or against the State, which in turn placed
itself with the Church, outside the Church, or against the Church.
The most conflicting position indeed was that of one aiming to be
over the other, embodying and holding both spiritual and political
power.
Every conflict of conscience is, nevertheless, at its root, an indi-
vidual conflict, which demands solution human souls.
in Religious
and civic societies both exist through their members only, and
every man faithful to the Church in religious matters is, at the
same time, a member of the civil society, ruled by the State. Defi-
nition of the respective jurisdiction of both spiritual and temporal
powers is necessary in order to keep each of them within its na-
tural bounds, but the fact remains that believers give simultaneous
allegiance to the Church and to the State, two institutions very
different in nature and aims, which can and often do enter into
conflict through rivalry or hostility, as well as through interming-
ling connection. The Qiurch’s mission is not to provide a political
solution for political problems, but to proclaim spiritual princi-
ples capable of inspiring men’s thought and action in every moral
issue, therefore also in the field of political justice and political
Each time the words Catholics and Democracy are coupled to-
society, embracing all men totally in the same faith, the same
political creed; and the party in power plays a role which corre-
sponds to that of religious orders in the Church.
World War II, as a universal catastrophe diabolically contrived
by the most anti-democratic powers, became a supreme lest for
western civilization based upon spiritual values proceeding from
the Jewish-Chrislian moral tradition, from the Greek philosophy
and Roman law, from the renascent humanism of the Middle and
Modern Ages as well as (since 1776) from the proclaimed aspi-
rations for freedom of every person as a bearer of those funda-
mental human values. Contemporary man acknowledges the strong
intimate relationship among such historical ingredients of his con-
sciousness of his own dignity, ingredients which were formerly too
often presented as separate and even opposing factors. An un-
interrupted line binds those successive stages of the sweeping tidal
wave for human liberation, and it is highly signihcant to observe
' Cli. Jiiiinipt, t'lirs Chrftirnnrs sur la Politique (Beauchemin, Canada). 1942
p. 17.
CATHOUCISM AND POLITICS 491
Unlike the Church’s concrete social doctrine for justice and har-
mony between classes, no such constructive official doctrine in the
political field has been formulated and assembled as a whole in
recent years. As a matter of fact Catholics do possess this through
the tradition of the classic thinkers in Christendom, continued,
explained and perfected by authoritative Catholic writers and
leaders inmodern times. Even by taking note of successive condem-
nations by Pope Pius XI of exaggerated Nationalism, and Fascist,
Nazi and Soviet totalitarianisms, they can easily realize what forms
of the State are excluded from that black list. But a brief an-
494 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
alysis of certain summits of Catholic thought in the historical de-
height of their power, they forget their duty, fire their hearts with
selfish pride and finally disdain their subjects as if they were
nothing in comparison with a king. Such kings should remem-
. .
ber the words of the Ecclesiastes: Have they made you a ruler?
Do not raise yourself above them, but he one of them.”^ The bases
and limitations of royal authority are clearly apparent in the Isi-
dorian doctrine and in the decisions and acts of the former Coun-
cils of Toledo. The fourth of them, presided by St. Isidore, in
633, set down rules for the election of the king, and protected as
far as possible the rights of the nation through the rising popular
liberties. An important law of the Sixth Council of Toledo (which
became the law XI of the Heading of the Liber judicum)
First
dealt with “breaking of oaths,” and amoitg other things declared:
“If any king should not want to fulfil the articles set forth in this
constitution, may his generation be scorned forever and lose its
by the people who revolted, was declared, with his family, ban-
ished from the throne by the Fourth Council of Toledo, before
which the proclaimed successor Sisenand was called, and humbly
received the authority of king from the supreme assembly. And
the Council established: “When the king dies, no man may take
over the reign or make himself king;” and provided for election
by “the accord of the bishops, the noble Goths and the people.”
The first Christian reigns which were formed in the Iberian pen-
insula after the Arabic invasion in the eighth century, the kingdoms
of Asturias and Leon, were modeled on visigothic laws and their
kings could not alter in their favor the visigothic tradition. It was
only in the eleventh century that heredity through association of
the son with the father was established, but the elective system
was in force for many years. The great political innovation ori-
a new monarch.*
The Christian Middle Ages carefully developed the political
doctrine issued from the famous text of the City of God in which
St. Augustine daduced human freedom from the natural order pre-
Since St. Thomas Aquinas (whom Lord Acton called “the first
Whig” because of his constitutional theories),® the thesis of the
s For example,
at the Parliament of 1134, in Borja, the Aragonese elected Ramiro
as King. When the Cortes were not in session, there was a permanent body called a
general deputation which carried on, and which saw to the management of public
affairs. When the king was a minor, the Cortes appointed a body of prelates, knights
and “good men” to counsel him, “without whom nothing was to be done,” as pro-
vided by the Cories of Palencia in 1313, and to receive complaints wlien anything was
done wrong and see to it that the guardians of the king put it right. Cf. Ckeccion
de Cortes, 37, 4; 38, 14; and R. A. & A. J. Carlyle, A History of Medieval Political
Theory in the West, vol. V, pp. 1251M.
» Cf. J. Qayton, Democracy in the Middle Ages and Modern Times, in the volume
For Democracy published by The People and Freedom Croup, London, 1939, p. 41.
Politics, book III. chapters IV-V.
CATHOLICISM AND POLITICS 497
—
t+The proverb per me re^’nanf reges implies causality aceonling to Vazquez
—
Menchaca in the same way that it is said “that, through divine ordinance, rivers
flow, fountains spring forth, plants grow, trees germinate, the sun sheds light, the
moon and the stars shine, and some men read, some write, some plough, others sow.
the leaves of the trees are stirred by the wind, the cat chases the rat, the eagle chases
doves, or the dog chases rabbits, and many other manifestations of this nature. Then,
in order for the ruler to perform iurisdiction through God’s will, it would be neces-
sary that God in'the examples outlined above, were maintaining jurisdiction through
all those beings.” Controventiarum, bonk I, cliapter XXIX, No. 4.
498 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
way Pope Innocent IV established: No one has the right to force
infidels to accept the faith, for each man has the right to follow
his own will, and nothing but the grace of God has any importance
in this instance. Bartolome de Las Casas in his famous polemics
with the imperialist Gines de Sepulveda (1550), declared: “All
nations and peoples whether they have faith or not, who have ter-
ritories and separate kingdoms which they have inhabited from the
beginning are free peoples and are under no obligation to recog-
nize any superior outside themselves.” Freedom becomes there-
them, exchange them, give them, separate them from their wives
and children, despoil them of their properties and possessions,
take them into oilier places or deprive them iii any manner what-
soever of their liberty, retain them in slavery, as well as to lend
aid, favour, or give counsel or succor, under no matter what pre-
text or excuse, to those who should do the said things, to speak
of it and teach it as something permitted, or to collaborate in it
Roman hierarchy, but also by the clergy sent to the new world
by the conquerors. It is known that the bishops were entitled the
will not cause harm to the subjects and finally degenerate into
tyranny.”®* Mariana does not admit that the citizens have ab-
solutely stripped themselves of their rights when they set up a
sovereign and bind themselves to obedience. They have not con-
ferred upon him the right to do whatever he wishes, without excep-
I’hilip III of .‘'pain, who an£.wered. after having had Suarez' book examined by the
most learned scholars of .Spanish liniveraities, that the book was ^und to contain
‘•ane and Catholie iloetrine. and that he would defend it and its author “with arms, if it
—
were neeessary.” St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa theo/ogica, I Ilae, q. XC, a. Ill)
conceiving law as an “ordinance of reason for the common good,’’ acknowledged that
“the right to ordain anything for the common good belongs either to the whole multi-
tude, or to someone who acts in place of the whole multitude.”
t# /)g legibus, book III, chapter II,
tion and without guarantee. And *‘the king is not superior to the
people, just as the son is not superior to the father, nor the brook
to the fountain from which it takes its origin.” For this reason,
society, our aim being only to recall how Democracy, human free-
Constitution (at the time of Pius VII) and connected closely with
reactionary parties and absolutist courts, especially Vienna.”^
The more and more inflexible attitude of the Holy See, throu^-
out the nineteenth Century —
^as recalled by Don Sturzo"'* the —
Luigi Sturzn, L’JRgUse rt I'Htat, Paris, 1M7, pp. 478-479.
2-* Ibid., pp. 483.
sm EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
monarchism of many bishops penetrated with old absolutist and
royalist theories, as well as the anti-liberal campaign of the
Jesuits and other congregations, all led to confuse morally ac-
ceptable Constitutionalism and political liberties, with naturalist
and revolutionary philosophies. It contributed to the creation of
an even deeper gap between the Church and the people wanting
liberty.Each “liberal” was regarded as anti-religious, while reac-
tionaries leaned upon the Church in order to use it as a tool of
})ower and a means of struggle.
If was a fact, a characteristic fact of theModern Ages, that a
Catholic State, that is, a political community which is composed
exclusively of Catholic subjects and which recognizes Catholicism
as the only true religion"*' no longer existed.®* A divided society
caused a divided State. Tolerance was often claimed by dissidents
in each Nation; was hardly practiced by rulers. The Protestant
it
As
defined by J. Pohle, article on Toleration in The Catholic Encyclopedia.
“The intimate connection of both powers during the Middle Ages was only a
passing and temporary phenomenon, arising neither from the essential nature of the
State nor from that of the Church.” J. Pohle, Inc. cit.
CATHOLICISM AND POLITICS 505
publication and they are not yet closed. Let us briefly see why.
50C EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
'
- Don
Luigi Sturm. L'£glise et Vf.tat, Paris, 1937, p. 507. Cf. aUo V. M. Craw-
The Rile and Decline oj Christian Democracy, chapter IV of the volume for
foril.
Demociacy, by “The People and Freedom Group,” London, 1939, p. 60.
CATHOUCISM AND POLITICS 501
cal, moral and political subjects. Some of them caused great as-
tonishment among liberals, both believers and non-believer. For
instance, the 15th, declaring erroneous that “every man is free
to embrace and profess the religion he is led by the only light of
his reason to find as being the true one.” And the 80th, declar-
ing it to be false that “the Roman Pope can and must agree with
progress, liberalism and modem civilization.” Catholics them-
selves were afraid, for the literal interpretation of such principles
created an embarrassing situation in which the Church could
lose all connection with the society upon which it was neverthe-
less called to act. And such a situation became more burdensome
since reactionary Catholics took the Syllabus as a weapon against
less narrow-minded co-religionists.
La CivUla Cattolica, October 1 7, 1863. In the same way, a very learned Spanish
priest and philosopher, Jaime Bahr.es, and the great French tribune Montalembert
had tried to show no incompatibility hut rather conciliation existing between Catholi-
<-ism and Democracy. They devoted themselves to distinguishing between dogmatical
intolerance in matters of faith, and civil tolerance proclaimed os necessary to society,
as a way to preserve peace among men.
With the very useful doctrine envisaging not thesis but hypothesis as applicable
to the actual conditions of life in our times, the position of Catholics, living in this
“hypothetic” but real world becomes indeed simplified. As Msgr. Dupanloup said:
"When as a matter of fact the unity of doctrine has been broken in any country, a
political law may be established on that fact. For this reason the Pope does not
necessarily condemn any Oonsliliition in which freedom of cults is granted.” What
the Syllabus means is that such a situation is not "the ideal one” for the Church
(whose ideal was all men professing the true religion). “The same for political
—
liberties—Dupanloup continues : the question is not to know if Catholics must em-
brace as a thesis, as an absolute truth, but simply if they may accept as laws or, on
the contrary, reject modem political liberties as such;” and his solution is that
“considering laws and institutions needed by a country or at a certain time, no one
word of the SYllabiis nr of the Encyclical condemns them,” (Lagrange, loc. cit.l.
CATHOLICISM AND POLITICS 509
^
Edited in pamplilet under the title The Roman Catholic Church and F ree
Thought, Cincinnati, 1868.
•t't
Loc. cit., p. 33: It could alao be said that tlin Eightieth proposition was only
concerned with the Pope and presented as if he could and might (both terms to-
gether) reconcile and harmonize (both too) with progress, liberalism, and with modern
civilization (with all the three) ;
and that lacking only one of these terms, the thesis
would be changed and therefore no more condemnnd. Casuistry possesses inexhausti-
ble resorts.
—
So Archbishop Purcell, loc. cit., p. 32 If it is an “error” that the Church and
State ought to be separated (as an ideal for every country and every time) it does
not imply that they ought to be united, either in abstract or hie et nunc.
The Calholir Encyclopedia, vol. XIV, p. 369.
—
of the World, they exist indeed in the World, and must be conscious
of their responsibilities as citizens of their respective States. Nei-
ther their religious faith however, nor their allegiance to the
Church, may imply any supplementary political attitude as need-
iustifies actions that are lawful and not actions that are intrinsically ba^. • .
If means ought to be proportionated to the end, we must only use them in the measure
CATHOLICISM AND POLITICS 513
in wliich they serve to obtain the end, or to render it possible in whole or in part,
and in sueh a wav that lliev do not eause the eommunity greater damage than that
which one wislies to repair.”
A peculiarly puzzling case, resulting in deep trouble in eonscienees, is that of the
position of the Church in Spain during the last fourteen years. When leftist Repub-
licans succeeded in imposing upon legislation certain principles denying Catholics
the rights of equal liberty proclaimed as fundamentals for all citizens, the protest of
the Church against such tinjust measures was as firm as it was lawful. Formally and
unanimously the Spanish bishops kept believers away from the paths of sedition. But
when sedition was started nut by the Army, in 1936, most of the seme bishops arcepted
and even blessed tlie military uprising from the beginning, so contradicting the
instructions given five years before to the Catholics.
Blasphemous tenets are current ways of stating an idolatric submission in totali-
tarian regimes. So Becker. Director of the Nazi Workers’ Front, dared to assert:
“Christ was great, but Adolph Hitler is greater,” {Frankfurter Zeitung, October 10,
19.3.'i). Dr. Engelke went even further: “God has manifested himself not in Jesus
Clirist but in Adolnh Hitler.” (Reported in the Manchester Guardian, July 15, 1938.
Cf. Nmisrn and Christianity, by the Rev. John A. O’Brien, Huntington, Indiana,
1941, p. 21.)
Two forms of parody of the Christian Creed were recently launched in Cermany
and Spain. The former was published in the Reichswart, as follows: “I believe in
.;
51 I EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
XI remains in all the strength of its expression: “Anyone who
takes race, or people, or State. . . and divinizes them through an
idolatrous worship, overturns and falsifies the order of things. .
He who dares to lift a mortal man to the same level as Christ, and
even over and against Him, deserves to be told he is a prophet
of nothingness, to whom the words of the Scripture are applicable:
“He who lives in Heaven jeers at him.”^*
Man, sovereign lord of all things and all powers on the earth. 1 believe in tlie Ger-
man, lord of himself, eonrcived under the nordii sky, who has suffered under
Papists and Mammon’s disciples, has gone down into hell, under rods and calumnies
of all kinds of devils, is rosurrecterl from the darkness of national death after tens
of miserable and hopeless years, who ascended to the heaven of Eckhaidt, of Bach
and Goethe, where he is sitting down beside his brother of Nazareth, at the right
side of the Eternal, wherefrom he will eome to judge alive buried and dead people.
I believe in the Holy Ghost of Humanity, in the Holy Church of the future, in the
communion of all serving not themselves but the weal of the country, in the foregive-
— —
ness of all faults, in resurrection under more perfect appearance to an eternal life
in future as in the past.” The second Creed, more personal Spanish “raudillo,"
in the
was published in the Falangist press by Isidore Rodrigalvarez. Here is its absurd
text: “I believe in Franco, the almighty man. the creator of a great Spain and of
Discipinc in a well organized Army; crowned with the most glorious laurels, liberator
of dying Spain and modeller of the Spain rising in' the shade of the most rigorous
social justice. Son of the people and bom from the people, he lived with the people
he endured wants and diffculties peculiar to workers’ families; he was born from the
entrails of the Motherland Spain, he suffered under Azaha’s tyrannical power, he
was tortured by the members of a despotic and partisan government, he was badlv
regarded and exiled. I believe in Property and in the greatness of Spain, which will
preside the walk along the Iradilional road thanks In which all the Spaniards will
have something to eat. I believe in forgiveness for those whose repentance is sincere,
in resurrection for ancient guilds oiganized into corporations, and in lasting tran-
luillity. Amen.” No commentaries are needed on these demonstrations of mental
disturbance, too frer|uent1y found under any totalitarian climate. Its examination is,
of course, useful to the diagnosis of psychiatrists.
** Encyclical Mir btennendei Sorge, March 14, 1937. In 1931. the same Pope iiad
already condemned and called the ideology of the Italian Fascism a “Statolatry”
(“which clearly resolves itself into a true, real pagan worship of the State”) ; and
severely blamed the tendency In subject all rights and all education to the service
of that conception of the State which “cannot be reconciled by a Catholic either
with Catholic doctrine or with the natural rights of the family." (Pius XI’s Ency-
clical Non ahbiamo hi^ogno.) Despite these clear words from the Head of the
Church, one of the “prophets” of Spanish Fa-scism, Ernesto Gimenez Caballero, for
whom Fascism is the true Catholicity, impudently wrote that: “Catholicism should
henceforward support itself on this new Catholicity” since the Church “in. the last
three centuries has gradually lost its Catholicity ... by dint of compromise with
heretics, revolutionaries and philosophers, by dint of Concordats and modem culture”
(Lii Nueva Catolicidad, Madrid, 1933, pp. 107-108, 118) ; he exalted idolatrous wor-
ship of the Hero, “the human gate of action opening on the divine, the ideal goal
leading to God;” and even added: “the worship of the Hero is similar to that
offered to Almighty God. . . . The hour has arrived for setting up this image of the
Hero before the youth of the whole World, and for commanding all to kneel before
it” (pp. 143-144). We ran easily see how also in Catholic countries Fascism is
always deeply anti-Christian because of its genuine pagan roots.
CATHOUCISM AND POLITICS 515
Luigi Stunu, chapter entitled “Ma vocation politique” in Les Guerres modernes
et la Pensee catholique, Montreal, Canada, 1942. Cf. hia works Italy and Fascism,
Politics and Ethics, where valu^le personal views teach us the fidelity of this
exemplary priest to both Church and Democracy.
Progressive Catholics have reached, in the social field, a degree of unity still
lacking in political matters. As an example, we can mention tlie Social Code issued
in 1927 by the “Union Internationale d’ftudes Sociales” founded in Malines Bel-
gium) under the direction of Cardinal Merrier. This organization was, to a certain
extent, the continuation of that of Fribourg (Switzerland) which worked from 1884
to 1891, under the direction of Cardinal Mermillod, for the preparation of principles
then embodied in the Encyclical Return Novarum by Leo XIII. Those participating
in the'drafting of the Socitd Code included an elite of social-minded Catholics of
several countries: Belgium, England, France, Italy, Netherland, Poland, Spain and
Switzerland.
CATHOUCISM AND POLITICS 517
“Neque illu4 per se reprehenditur, panicipem plus minus esse populum rei
publicae; quod ipsum oertis in tempuribus certisque legibus potest non solum ad
utilitatem sed etiam ad nffiriiim pertinerr rivinm.” Enryi-lii-nl Immortulf Thi,, Novem-
ber 1, laai.
518 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
as non-€oiifessionaJljut inspired by Christian principJes), or in
came to the surface a few days later when Augusto Turati, Sec-
Coiidemiiatioii of Nazism
copacy, since 19.30, at a time when many people failed to see the
enormous dangers of such a doctrine. The Bishop of Mainz for-
validly and learnedly the absurd dogmas” of Karism, lisled in a kinri of “Syllabus.”
Among those “errors" to fight against: “(2) The vigor and blood purity of the race
are to be preserved and cherished by every means possible. ... (6) The first source
and highest rule of the entire juridical order is the instinct of race. ... (8) fndividual
men exist only for the State and on account of the State; whatever rights may per-
tain to them are derived solely from the concessions of the Stale.”
.
Anti-Semitism.”'^'
the principles of its ethics, the Church was upholding the rights of
the human being. The human being keeps his own worth with
regard to the State, Cardinal Faulhaber asserted; and the indivi-
dual cannot be devaluated, nor expropriated, nor deprived of his
rights to benefit the State; he cannot become blotted out or turned
into a slave of the State, without any rights,'*®
Cf. Catholici and Jews, A Study in Human Relatiuns, by K«-v. Gregoiy Fi*igf.
(The Catholic Association for International Peace, Washington. 1945), pp. 89-90.
See John M. Oe&terieicher, Racisme Antisemitisme Antirhristianisme (New
York, Editions de la Huison Fran^-aise. 1943) pp. 199 and fnllowing; Ecole Lihrr
des Hautes Etude-.. Le Droit lausle a Fassaut de la Civilisation, especially the rliaptet
“L’application du Droit larisle en Fiance'’ by Paul Jacob (New York, Editions de
la Maison Frangaise. 1943).
524 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
showed themselves to be champions of the liberty of the Jews, in
face of the unleashed hatred brandished against tliem by the racist
tyranny.
Among so many mistakes which the Catholic masses have com-
mitted in our century in political matters, that of Anti-Semitism
has in general nut been committed, thanks, in this instance, to the
purely Christian attitude of the hierarchy. Anti-Semitism was the
most brutal of the natural consequences of Fascist totalitarianism.
The horrible sight of the gas chambers and of the sadism of the
torturers was instrumental in opening the eyes of a number of
Catholics who certainly had not shown themselves to be clairvoy-
ant with regard to the totalitarian tyranny which was the cause.
tributes to the man who holds the necessary physical strength the
power to make use of it without any consideration for the rights of
human beings.” Such a statement was clear enough for Catholics
supporting so-called “Christian dictators,” but the natural .address-
ees of this message did not consider that it alluded to them, and on
the contrary, continued to think that the pontiff was referring to
others, and continued willingly to close their eyes to truths as
lemma created the brutal tension which split the world by leading
the peoples toward that universal civil war whose forerunner and
sinister rehearsal was the Spanish War.
Blackfriais. Octnber 1936. from the Cmadian CallinJir paper Social Forum,
August, 1936.
;
the justice of the war,and the horrible crimes which were com-
mitted against the dissidents, as well as the ends pursued and
put into practice by those who called themselves “crusaders of a
Holy War.” Most of the Basques, whose Catholicism cannot be
doubted, fought openly against Franco’s troops and against the
Italian divisions which took part in the war. Franco had indeed
gone to great lengths in showing considerations and apparent re-
the “saviors of the nation” was infinitely worse than the evil. It
is enough to consider the atrocious course of the Civil War and of
the regime which succeeded and which is still in power. The tri-
umph of violence could not assure peace, but only the perpetuation
of violence, in the service of a dictatorship, defined by its leader,
•7 On October
1, 1936, Franco, assuming the functions wiiicli his
co-insurgents had
so librraliy conferred upon him < enthroned by (’.eneral (nitanellas by the words;
“I confer upon you the absolute powers of the Stale”)' fiirmallv derlared “Spain is
organised according tri a va?»f totaJitarwn conccpl.”
530 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
of the Falange’s totalitarianism as well as the fact that solidarity
with such a regime compromised the Church to a great extent in
Spain. When Pope Pius XI issued his encyclical against Nazism,
the Spanish newspapers were unable to publish it, because the Ger-
man censorship, which was set up in the Peninsula, prevented its
printing. Only in the final months of the Civil War did Cardinal
Goma, Archbishop of Toledo, dare to protest publicly against “the
divinization of the State.” But scarcely had this disagreement
arisen when Cardinal Goma found himself forbidden to publish
his instructions to the faithful, as the Franco regime did not allow
the slightest criticism, even from an ardent collaborator.
In its reaction against martydom in one zone, the liierarchy had
accepted submission in the other, and submission to a totalitarian
system which, in its own program, declared its intention of making
use of the social force which the Church represented in order to
annex it and incorporate it into its nationalistic frame. Franco
dissolved the Catholic organizations of workers and of students,
in favor of the sindicatos of the Falange.- The Catholic leader,
Gil Robles, despite having himself ordered the dissolution of his
party at the beginning of the military insurrection, and being dis-
posed to favor it, soon found that he was expelled from Spain and
is still living in exile in Portugal. Many Spanish Catholics (Re-
publicans, Monarchists, Traditionalists), are living in exile or in
Franco’s prisons, or have been deprived of the right to practise
their professions. But we must make a basic, distinction between
those Catholics who supported the counter-revolution and who
were then persecuted for not showing an absolute conformism
with the regime, or for incidents of a personal nature, and those
other Catholics who, from the outset, opposed totalitarianism and
whose attitude is based on deeprooted democratic convictions.
Some day, when the Franco regime has fallen into defeat, if a
genuine democratic movement of Christian inspiration is able to
arise in Spain, this will be
on account of those Catholics who have
always upheld a decisive attitude of opposition against the dicta-
torship, in defense of liberty.
CATHOLICISM AND POLITICS 5Sl
esting, from the doctrinal point of view, like Esprit, Temps Present,
Politique, Res Publica, La Vie Intellectuelle, etc. Without being
the organs of any party, these publications spread the democratic
doctrine among the Catholic French and prepared a democratic
movement and a conscience whose ripeness is now clearly appre-
ciated. In 1940, at the time of the French Armistice, only 80 mem-
countries; and his pure religious orthodoxy, linked with his sound
democratic standing, has given him his unique prestige.
The participation of the Christian Democrats in the government
of Italy, alongside with Communists and liberals, was not an easy
task. One of the first problems, which were to test the democratic
loyalty of that party, was the question of the form of govern-
ment. Many Catholics were inclined towards the conservation of
the monarchy, but the Congress of the Christian Democratic Party
decided in favor of the republic in 1946, by a majority of 69%
of its delegates. In Italy, like in France, Belgium, Holland and
other countries, the Catholic Democrats had gained the respect of
the other groups, due to their opposition to Fascism when it was
in power and because of its resistance to Nazism under the Ger-
man occupation.
It would he a mistake to assume that the democratic attitude,
nowadays so widespread among the Catholics, was common to all
of them. In France, during the Vichy regime, there were many, -in
fact too many, of the Catholics who hacked Marshal Petain, him-
self a Catholic, admirer and follower of Fascist methods. The dif-
The final tabulation of 30 million post-war votes in the four zones of Germany
gave these results: Christian Democrats. 10,598,241; Social Democrats, 7,778,313;
Socialist Unity Party (Communist dominated), 5,093,144; Communist, 1,247,340;
Basae-Saxe Party,' 1,002,718; Center, 459,425. When in November, 1945, Austrians
elected their Federal Parliament and prorincial bodies, the Popular Party (former
Social-Christian) won 1,574,587 votes and 85 seats; the Social-Democrats, 1.420.862
votes and 77 seats; the Communists only 176.671 votes and .3 seats.
536 EUROPE AN IDEOLOGIES
declaration i)ul also implementation “by the authority of the
courts,” the Pope stated the principle that “the State and the
functionaries and organi 2 ations dependent on it are obliged to re-
pair and to withdraw measures which are harmful to the liberty,
property, honor, progress or health of the individuals,” in order
to restore the State and its power to the service of human society”
with full recognition of the “respect due to the human person”
against “the errors which aim at deviating the State and its au-
thority from the path of morality.” The above mentioned prin-
with the dignity and liberty of the citizens,” and such a demand
“cannot have any other meaning than to place the citizen ever
would wipe both off the face of the earth. There would have
been no Totalitarianism if both had remained joined together.
Now, by the force of a common threat, they have been united in a
fashion. But the task of cementing the union has yet to be achieved
. . .Christianity and democracy must cease going their separate
paths or contemplate the destruction of their common world.”"**
537
xni
Nationalism
xin.
NATIONALISM
by
Thorsten V. Kalijahvi
Our Age
Nationalism Defined
' See* intrndiii’iiiin Id Alfml Ziinmern, Modem Political Ilnrtrines, New Ynrk,
Oxford University Press, 1939, pages I-XXXII.
2 Royal Institute of Intematumal Affairs, Nationalism, London, Oxford IJniverhity
Press, 1939, pages XVI-XX.
s Harry Elmer Barnes, History and Social Intelligenre, New York, Knopf, 1926,
page 145; also see C. J. H. Hayes, Essays on Nationalism, New York, Macmillan,
1926, and Bernard Joseph, Nationality: Its Nature and Problems, New Haven, Yale,
1929.
NATIONALISM 54;{
mentu.' In this sense the nation, its customs and traditions are
often combined with demands for racial amalgamation, racial
purity, which in turn are based upon racial awareness of common
destiny and common blood.
Nationalism should also be distinguished from a state, which
is an established organization consisting of a group of people
inhabiting a particular territory with a particular form of govern-
ment, which group is held together by the consciousness that in
its entirety it constitutes a state..
Nationalism also differs from patriotism and loyalty, which
mean love of the fatherland. Nor is nationalism government,
which means the political organization that controls and directs
graphically or economically.®
Summarizing these thoughts, nationalism is a form of group
feeling related to other kinds of group feeling, be they community,
family or religious. It is concerned with political power which
places the individual at an advantage when he belongs to the
Nature of Nationalism^
Forms of Nationalism
** C. Dclisle Bums, Political Idetds, London, Oxford University Press, 1932, pages
•
179-181.
p. 175.
* W. McDougall, Social Psychology, Boston, Luce & Co., 1916; also Sydney Heiltert,
Nationality and Its Problems, London, Me*huen, 1920; Gustave LeBon, Psychology
of People, London, Unwin, 1899.
NATIONALISM 545
Since this definition may also be true of cities, trade unions and
other groups, it is necessary to add that the sentiment must be such
that the group concerned considers itself a nation with national
characteristics.
Race
it develops into the idea of master races and inferior races. Here
in our own country we have not been immune to its influences be-
cause, for example, we believe that aliens are inferior to native
Americans. Sometimes the concept of race goes so far as to state
that war eliminates unfit races and only the fit races survive.^
. So strong has the feeling of race become during the last decade
that violent conflicts have occurred over it. We know that all
Frenchmen are not temperamental, all villains are not dark for-
eigners, all Irishmen are not witty, nor are all Americans lovers
of the almighty dollar, yet most of us act as if this were true, and
out of these racial ideas emanates much modem nationalism.^^
Language
See Y. A. Novicow, ITar and Its Alleged Benefits, London, Heinemann, 1912,
chapter 4.
See L. Dominian, The Nationality Map of Europe, Boston, World Peace Founda-
tioil, 1917; aim K. L. Gueirani, Short HUtory of the International J^anguage Movom
tneiU, London, Unwin, 1922.
NATIONAUSM 549
institutions.
found.
Closely connected with a state’s institutions is the memory of its
Religion
Our fifth base was religion. In some cases the racial, linguis-
tic, traditional and institutional bases of a state’s nationalism al-
so include a religious component.’^ The racial boundary between
the Poles and the Germans is also the religious boundary. One of
the complaints of the Germans prior to the second World War was
that Catholic Poland controlled Protestant Danzig. However, it
Here for example see D. J. Hill, Americanism, What Is It? New York, Appleton,
1916; G. Ohlinger, Their True Faith and Allegiance, New York, Macmillan, 1916;
and Edward M. Hulme. Renaissance and Reformation, New York, Century, 1915,
pages 52-53.
IT R. A Goslin, Chuich and State, New York, Foreign Policy Association Head-
line, 1937.
NATIONALISM 551
fluential in Africa, Asia and the Near East. These religions are
not national; they are world forces. Some of the world’s great-
est' nationalistic movements, however, have been closely inter-
fought for the recovery of the Holy Land during the crusades,
and as it spread its missionaries everywhere. Christian mission-
aries in the new world, Africa, Oceania and the Far East have at
once been agents of the church they represented and also power-
from which they came.
ful advance representatives of the states
History abounds with examples. There by way of illustration
is
Geography
NATICMVALISM 553
not take long for the individual to absorb the ideas growing out
of the tradition and the backgroimd which go into the making of
nationalistic ideals.^
History
Elconomics
ments and ideals, and since they constitute basic parts of Euro-
pean nationalisms these latter will inevitably conflict in so far
Propaganda
show that the press, the moving pictures, the radio, and other in-
War
n.
HISTOMCAL ORIGIN
Beginnings
^Modern World Politics, Supta clt., 2nd cd., chapters I and XVI.
556 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
in the past except perhaps the loyalty of the Greeks to their city
state. However the roots go back even farther than Greece to prim-
itive times when group was separated from group and each ac-
Ancient Greece
Rome
Middle Ages
aissance. Not until the One Hundred Years War did national
feelingbecome evident. The great instance of loyalty during the
Medieval Ages sung by the bards of that time was the Song of
Roland, in which it is told that Roland laid down bis life at Ron-
cevaux in 778 to cover Charlemagne's withdrawal from Spain.
But Roland did not lay down his life for a Frankist state but for
Charlemagne himself to whom he owed personal loyalty.®®
Revival®®
than nations. The control over the world which had hitherto been
vested in the Papacy and the Empire began to dissolve. Heresies and
Protestantism, mingled with racial confusion, separated group
from group. The people of Wessex and Northumbria became
** R. H. Murray, The History of PoliUctd Science from Plato to the Present, New
York, Appleton, 1926), chapter II.
^ W. A. Dunning, Political Theories, voL 1, chaptera V-X.
E. M. Hulme, Renaissance and Rcfoimation, New York, Century, 1915, chap-
ter 3.
EUROPEAN I1)E()L0(;1F:S
the new national state and to the new national monarch. The Re-
formation following the Renaissance succeeded in centralizing
the administration of law and enhanced royal prestige which grew
stronger as it emphasized the peculiarity of national institutions
and languages and thus of the new nation states. Herein lay the
broad beginnings of modern nationalism.
The old Roman world had marked Europe between the fourth
and fourteenth centuries with the idea of unity. When it went to
pieces the New Europe was made up of several nation states tied
together into a family of nations and regulated by a philosophical
international law. As nations responded to the call of nationality
NATIONALISM SSQ
Benevolent Despots’"’
English people had not been ready for him to do so. Henry’s
move bore clear testimony to the new-born English nationalism
which rejected any universal bold upon England of either the
Church or the Empire. And so it was with Queen Elizabeth of
England, Catherine de Medici, and the other rulers of the time.
When they spoke as the so-called benevolent despots, they did so
because they voiced the wishes of their people. The nationalism
of the time expressed itself through the rulers.
This was true until the latter half of the eighteenth century when
the despot had outlived his usefulness. By that time the ruler had
grown away from his people until he no longer embodied their
national aims, ambitions, and longings. The efforts of the people
Napoleon
Nineteenth Century
Twentieth Century
From the First World to the Second World War and After
tensities.
in.
Majority-Minority Relationships
tion, (2) the efforts of the majority to control the national minor-
ities within the group. Sometimes as in the case of the Magyar in
Irred^ntism
Problem of Minorities
years. All in all there has been a reversion to the more primitive
and drastic methods of enforcing group will upon recalcitrant
minorities.
One of the basic theories of the present time, which runs back
into the 19th century, is that a state is a sovereign person. This
is a German idea which hies back to Hegel, and it is still the basis
Still another theory, which goes farther back in history than the
previous one, is that the nation constitutes a geographic unit. This
pearance of geopolitics.
a nation as
from all foreigners, quite apart from the bond of the state.
Like Hegel and Fichte he adopted the state of mind as the ul-
this sense from the people in the political sense, and thus he gave
a clear background for the distinction between, for example, the
German state and the German people.
SCHOOLS OF NATIONALISMS"®
Humanitarian Nationalism
powers, and its flavor from the soil from which it flows, so the
“The most natural state is one people with one national charactefr.”
At the end of the eighteenth century it might be pointed out that
theories of nationalism had reached the point where they could
be divided into (1) aristocratic, (2) democratic and (3) neither.
Democratic nationalism became Jacobin. Aristocratic nationalism
NATIONALISM
became traditional; while the nationalism which was neither dem-
ocratic nor aristocratic became “liberal.”
Jacobin Nationalism
new kind of war to make the world safe for democracy and for
French nationalism. It was not a war between dynasts, but between
the French and other peoples, and between French despots and
the French people. The French
nation, but the just defense of a free people against the unjust
aggression of a king: that the French nation never confuses its
brethren with its real enemy and it will favor all foreigners who
adjure the cause of the enemy. It will try to reduce the curse
of war.
Traditional Nationalism
—
how they began perhaps by contract. The state was no mere
partnership to be made or suddenly dissolved at pleasure. It was
NATIONALISM 573
a partnership not only between those who are living but between
thosewho are living and those who are dead and thosie who are to
be bom. The people, the nationality, were not distinct from their
government and they had no right to break the social tie which
linked them to their forefathers. Burke’s nationalism glorified the
aristocrats, flaunted the genius of the English lords, feared the
Liberal Nationalism
national court.
S74 EITROPKAN IDEOLOGIES
His internatioiialisin .sprea<l lo Germany where Humboldt and
Baron Stein became strong proponents. In France, Frangois
Guizot upheld it. Perhaps nowhere was Liberal nationalism more
forcefully enunciated than by Theodore Welcker in Germany.
But it was Guiseppe Mazzini in Italy who gave the final word-
ing to this type of nationalism. “God and the People,” was the
motto of his young Italy. In his Autobiography, in the Essays on
Duties of Man, in Nationality and in Faith and the Future, he de-
clared that French Jacobinism failed because it stressed the rights
and not the duties of man. The French Revolution was selfish;
itsrights having begun in the declaration of man it could only end
in man. The man was Napoleon. In contrast with this he empha-
sized that the nation was a God-appointed instrument charged
with the welfare of the human race. Fatherlands were the work-
shops of humanity. The state must educate and train its members
in the light of moral law, and it must arrange and direct its ac-
tivities in behalf of humanity at large. Nationalism is what God
has prescribed to each people in the work of humanity.
A number of liberal nationalists were Garibaldi, Cavour, Ga-
gern, Schmerling, Lasker, Michelet, Victor Hugo, Casimir-Perier,
Ledru-Rollin, Austin, Grote, Francis Place, John Mill, Korais,
Bluntschli, Kossuth, Palacky, and Daniel O’Connell.
In general, Liberal nationalism stood for an independent con-
stitutional government to end despotism, aristocracy, and eccle-
siastical influence, and thus assure every citizen that through its
Integral Nationalism
Interaationalism
Pacifism
A Surging Movement
Democracy
work has been may be seen in the way in which the United States
and Great Britain were able to stand up under totalitarian assaults
during the Second World War. But education as a vehicle for the
spread of nationalistic ideals is not confined to democracies. From
the start, the Russian, German, Italian and other totalitarianisms
have operated on the basis that education and propaganda are
means of spreading doctrines. Most totalitarian leaders have
asked for one generation in which to convert the fundamental
outlook of the state to their way of thinking. Thus was Russia
converted to Communism, Italy to Fascism, and Germany to Na-
tional Socialism, during the generation 'between the two World
580 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
Wars. National systems of education, whatever their objectives,
have been the means of spreading and inculcating people with
nationalistic doctrines.®"
Propaganda
velop its own character. It is doubtful that in the long run any
national group or state can impose its will upon another group
without serious damage. When people retain their own character-
istics they are bound to create a more productive and progressive
world. Nationalism, therefore is consistent with humanity and
with nature. It is only found that when any nation seeks to im-
pose uniformity of belief or doctrine on the world, no matter how
good its doctrines may be, that effort is not only egotistical, im-
practical, and boresome, but it is also in the interests of mankind
that it should fail. The failure of Nazi Germany and imperialist
Japan was therefore in the interests of the world. Similarly, it
was in the interest of the world at large that the efforts of Russia
to impose her institutions upon Poland, Lithuania and the border
states failed during the nineteenth century. It is in the interest,
not only of individual states but of the world as a whole and of
human society, that each nation should be permitted to develop its
own characteristics. As Burns says: “For the human race is not
at its best when every man and every group is a copy of each
other.”«
Its Drawbacks
the only solution for national problems. Peace and world order
are achievable, but only when man realizes that national groups
can be so regulated in their relations with each other that points
of difference can be settled by other means than by conflict. If
'*'*
C. DeLisIp Burn!), Politicid lde<di, page 194.
58^ EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
modern nationalism can be stripped of its bellicose a<!tions, peace
can lie achieve<l. It is demand free-
fantastic that states which
dom for their nationalism should simultaneously demand the right
to impose their own nationalisms upon others and to govern other
peoples. Some of these inconsistencies must be ironed out. The
chief difficulty of the present moment is lack of political imagina-
tion.
Shall It Be Eliminated?
Hill, 1939.
Roucek, Joslpii S. Twentieth Century Political Thought, New
:
583
XIV.
Regionalism and
Separatism
XIV.
by
Joseph S. Roucek
ism and separatism of the Slovaks was really caused by the “exag-
gerated or oppressive form of centralization” of Prague; the same
587
388 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
applies to the problem of the Sudeten Germans, In fact, the agita-
tion and maneuvres of Hitler were more important factors than
the policies of Prague. Secondly, regionalism can hardly be dis-
tinguished from nationalism, for the most troublesome difficulties
of regionalism and separatism have been caused during the last
two or three decades not so much by economic or class interests
as by the nationalistic agitation.
In fact, the basic factor of regionalism of contemporary Eu-
rope has been the problem of nationalistic self-determination; al-
though the economic, religious and other factors have played their
part, the arguments provided for regionalistic and separatist
claims have been underlined primarily by the nationalistic ideol-
ogies.
we recall that the study was written in the thirties, when the inten-
tian population) perturbed the bid for reconciliation, and the Diet
was in permanent conflict with Berlin. During World War I, pro-
French sympathies flared up again, and more than 20,000 in-
habitants were deported by the German authorities on political
grounds.
When the French armies, in accordance with the terms of the
Armistice, marched into Alsace-Lorraine in November, 1918, they
were enthusiastically welcomed. By the Treaty of Versailles, the
provinces were reunited with France, and a German demand for
a plebiscite was turned down.
The French restored the three departements, Haut-Rhin, Bas-
Rhin and Moselle, and embarked on a policy of assimilation;
French was introduced as language of instruction in schools. As
during the period of German rule the population had learned to
feel as a territorial unit and had become conscious of their ethni-
cal character as German-speakers, an autonomist movement arose
and gathered momentum by the government’s action in 1925
which was intended
to introduce French lay legislation instead of
autonomism.
The whole problem of Alsace-Lorraine indicates the point which
we emphasized at the beginning of this chapter, that the outstand-
592 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
ing aspects of the questions arising from the existence of region-
alism are those of nationalism.
This characteristic more and more apparent as we pro-
is
Ireland
was concluded between London and the Dail Eireann. The Home
Rule Bill was repealed, and the Irish Free State Act of 1922 cre-
ated a Dominion known as the Irish Free State in Southern Ire-
land (Eire). Northern Ireland remained a part of the United
Kingdom but was given a degree of self-government —and rep-
resents a definite problem in regionalism.
Spain
Spain has always been troubled with the regionalistic and separ-
atistic problems. Catalonia is a region in the northeastern corner
of Spain, inhabited by the Catalans or Catalonians who speak a
language akin to, but substantially differing from, Spanish.
Catalan regionalism has its roots as far back as the twelfth
tutions of the land, language and art of the people.” After World
War I, the Basques obtained autonomy. But defeated by General
Franco, their country was occupied in 1937 by the Spanish na-
tionalists; all their privileges and linguistic ri^ts were sup-
pressed.
With a view to reviving Galician as a cultural tongue, the move-
ment centering itself around the old University of Santiago de
Compostela.
Italy
Germany
the west. The new group, called the Rhenish People’s Party, is
In fact. Dr. Fritz Opitz, a journalist, who headed the new party
in 1946, admitted his movement was begun by former followers
« —
Central’Eastern Europe
the leaders ol the national movements could not show any heredi-
tary connection with those who had lived under the earlier states;
a large number of the leaders came of the stock of the alien in-
vaders. (5) These national movements were often related with a
revival of the native languages, which had survived as peasant
dialects since the days of independence. Eventually these dialects
were unified, grammars and dictionaries created, and the vocabu-
lary enlarged to make the language suitable for purpose of litera-
ture and government. (6) The literary revivals were the prod-
ucts of small bodies of intellectuals, many of whom belonged to
the dominant race, and most of whom had taken advantage of
its educational system and culture. (7) The inspiration for these
revivals came from abroad, from Germany (Her-
particularly
der”), and the political ideas of Western Europe from England
(Ireland, Italy), France (Poland, Rumania, the Czechs), or Ger-
many (Latvia, Estonia, Croatia). (8) The literary revivals be-
came politically important because they emphasized the sense
of distinction already felt on a social basis; the Western concept
of self-determination was accepted because it offered the pos-
from rule that was socially oppressive. (9)
sibility of liberation
Austrian South-Tyrol
from the north; it has been an individual state unit since the 7th
century, when it was settled by the forefathers of the present-day
Tyrolese. The long traditions of independence produced the
fighters who in 1809, guided by their peasant leader Andreas
Hofer, inflicted the first crushing defeat on Napoleon at a time
when even the most powerful nations of Europe were still willing
to submit to him.
Although the capital of Tyrol, Innsbruck, has developed in the
north, the ecclesiastical capital was at Brixen (in the south), and
the Archbishop of Brixen remained the head of the church in the
entire Tyrol even after the partition of 1919. From a cultural
viewpoint, the south was even more productive than the north,
and the great names of Tyrolese civilization, the great painters
and poets like Walter von der Vogelweide came from South Tyrol.
(The very name of Tyrol originated at Meran).
During all these centuries the Tyrolese inhabited their land
in a solid block which reached as far as Salum, where we find the
oldest and sharpest nationality line in Europe. Today, ethnically
the country belongs to Austria. But throughout 1946, Rome and
Vienna were arguing over the possession of the region.
when the issue was seized upon by Hitler for his purposes of driv-
ing through Czechoslovakia on the way to the Balkans and the
Near East, along the “transversal Eurasian Axis.”
—
taken by Tiso, also a Priest, and later by his right-hand man under
Hitler’s regime, Tuka.
The party demanded Slovak autonomy in 1938, and with Hit-
ler’s help created an autonomous, “free” Slovak state in 1939,
which collapsed with the Russian invasion of Slovakia at the end
of World War 11. While Tuka was hanged as a traitor, the separ-
Yugoslavia
If there was a state in the post-war Europe eursed with the most
burning regional problems, then it was Yugoslavia. To speak of
Yugoslavia as a whole would helie facts. The country presents
the most baffling mixture of race, language, custom, and belief
imaginable. Here are Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Magyars, Slo-
venes, Albanians, Moslems, Romanians, Germans, and Jews; here
are Mohammedans, Protestants, Roman Catholics, and members
of the Greek Orthodox Church. All these aspects had their region-
alistic and separatistic tendencies, focused particularly around
the problem of the Serb versus the Croat. The crux of Yugoslav
politics, from the very formation of the new state in 1918 to this
day, has been the alternative of centralization and federalism
the Serbs fostering the notion of “Greater Serbia,” and the Croats
advocating regionalism. The conflict between the Serbs on the one
hand and the Croats and Slovenes on the other hand reached a
climax in 1928 when several Croat leaders were shot by a Serb
deputy in the National Assembly. It was this incident that led to
King Alexander’s dictatorship —a system of government which
tried to supplant regionalism by a strict centralism.
The movement was headed by the Croats who resented the dom-
ination of Serbia’s Belgrade. Zagreb, ancient and obstinately self-
Macedonia
manship in 1948.
Russia
® Ericli Huh, “The Nationalities Policy of the Soviet Union,” Social Research,
XI (May, 1944), pp. 168-201.
** Republished several times; see Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National and
CotorUM Questions (New York, n.d., Marxist Library, Works on Marxism-Leninism,
Vol. 38, ed. by A. Fineberg), pp. 1-61.
610 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
break them down and unite the population “in such a manner as
to open the way for division of a different kind, division accord-
ing to class.” In Stalin’s view, the form that best serves this pur-
pose is regional autonomy, the autonomy of territorial. units with
an ethnically diversified population. Common, not separate, in-
stitutions promote the spirit through which common purposes are
achieved. Thus Stalin defined the equality of nationalities in terms
of the equal rights of their several members. The endeavor to
The Soviet regime has gone much farther than the imperial
government ever did in trying to approximate the administrative
political set-up in the national structure of the population, at least
in the southeastern and eastern parts of the country. But the fact
also remains that neither the Union republics nor their territorial
612
XV.
Zionism
ZIONISM
Editorial Note
turally and nationally with the nation in which the Jews had lived
615
616 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
for centuries; they y)ere particularly influential in the nineteenth
century, especially among and professional classes.
the intellectual
Finally, the Territorialist Movement should be noted. Headed by
ZIONISM
By
Jacob Lestchinsky
Historical Background
617
618 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
with the Talmud up to the period of the emancipation and including
the Chassidic works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are
filled with references to the merit of living in Palestine and praise
of the country. It is true that during the past two thousand years
Jews also produced secular philosophic and poetic works, but they
were quantitatively few and could not compete in the conscious-
ness of the people with the religious works. Yehuda Halevi viewed
Palestine as the land whose climate produces prophets. To die in
Palestine was the most devout hope not only of pietists but also of
such educated persons as Maimonides and Yehuda Halevi. This
national desire for redemption through a return to Palestine was
so deeply rooted that even a man like Lord Beaconsfield (Dis-
raeli), who had broken with the Jewish people, reflected it in his
novels, {David Alroi and Tancred).
Thus one can account for the fact that throughout almost nine-
teen centuries since the destruction of the Temple, Palestine was
at no time devoid of Jews. During the first seven or eight centuries
of this period large numbers of Jews continued to live in the
country and a number of rebellions occurred in an effort to re-
gain Jewish independence. .When Palestine was occupied by
Khalif Omar (637 A. D.) between three and four hundred thou-
sand Jews lived in Palestine. The country passed from one ruler
to another, from Rome to Byzantium, then to the Arabs. For a
short time it was ruled by Christians after the first Crusade, then
it passed to the Turks. Persecution of Jews in Palestine con-
tinued in various degrees but never ceased entirely. Neverthe-
less, Jews were continually drawn to the country. The Jewish
traveler, Benjamin of Tudelo, found only about a thousand Jews
in Palestine. Following upon the expulsion of the Jews from
Elngland, France and many cities of Southern Germany at the
time of the Crusades, migration to Palestine increased. After the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) this migration assumed
a mass character. During the sixteenth century Safad became the
center of the Cabbalists and more than fifteen thousand Jews lived
in that city. At that time some were made to
practical attempts
colonize the country. Don Joseph Hanassi, who had fled Portugal
ZIONISM 619
ZIONISM 621
I’iore, Rabbi Kalisher, Moses Hess and Eliezer Ben Yehuda.. All
of them preached redemption in the traditional sense, yet tried to
do something concrete about it. In 1878 a group of Rumanian
Jews founded the modern Jewish settlement, Petach Tikvah
first
Chibbat Zion
ZIONISM 623
role of this trend did not maintain that Zionism could not or
should not strive to solve the Jewish political and economic prob-
lems, but rather that it should concentrate on the solution of the
Jewish national-cultural problem through the establishment of a
spiritual center in Palestine. It set itself the task of preserving
the basic principles of Zionism, of preparing cadres of devoted
idealists to present the idea to the people and preserve its purity,
Zionism
for the realization of this aim. Herzl’s political scope and the
statesmanship of his approach were new. The masses- gravitated
toward him as the potential “Jewish King,” a personality fit to
occupy the throne of leadership, a redeemer on a modern scale
who approached the Jewish question from a political standpoint
that was in keeping with the political trends and methods of the
time. The charm of Herzl’s personality exerted its influence in
Central and Western Europe on those elements who had become
disappointed in the redeeming quality of emancipation. In East-
ern Europe his influence was enhanced especially by his European
aureole and the fact that he came from a strange and distant
world.
However it would be erroneous to assume that only the charm
of his personality roused to drastic and far-reaching action. There
was something fateful in his appearance on the scene. The Jewish
masses sensed that he had voiced that which they, being politically
inarticulate, had not dared to enunciate, but bore deep within their
hearts as an unuttered dream. Manner is no less important in
politics than in art.Old truths assume an explosive character
when uttered by a person who knows the secret of resurrection,
who possesses the key to the era. Herzl was such a person.
ZIONISM 627
These were the main ideas of the small book which laid the
foundations fur the Zionist organization and created the political
atmosphere leading to the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate and
the international recognition of the Jewish Agency as the organ of
the Zionist movement.
Nor was Herzl satisfied merely to indicate the ways and means
of politically organizing the scattered Jewish people and of es-
tablishing a political apparatus for landless Jewry. He also gave a
concrete description of how to organize the work which would lead
to a Jewish State and to train the Jewish people so that the State
should be founded on progressive trends of European social think-
ing. This concretization of aim as well as of ways and means had
a great effect, since it was expressed in simple and sober terms
yet with such conviction and faith that great masses were enchanted
of his plan, the depth of his faith and the ripeness of the moment
for the establishment of a Jewish State. The immediate result
628 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
was the first world Zionist Congress, which was without doubt a
turning point in the history of the Jewish people.
showed how the homeless Jews, torn asunder and scattered the
world over, had become estranged from each other. Yet at the
same time it how deep rooted were the common
also demonstrated
national feelings and mutual bonds, how strong was their belief
in their common creed and redemption; and how alike was the
destiny of Jewish minorities in different countries despite all their
economic, political and cultural differences.
Listening to the reports of the representatives, one became in-
Herzl believed that the Zionist Congress was the Jewish Gov-
ernment en route —and there is much truth in this. During the
course of the 50 years of the existence of this Organization, only
once did a group break the discipline and withdraw. This was in
Any Jew who accepts this program and buys a Shekel (fifty
cents) is entitled to membership in the Zionist Organization.
630 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
onization achievements.
(b) From the Balfour Declaration to the Hitler debacle (1933)
— intensive immigration into Palestine, tremendous in-
Herzl (1904), on whom the masses had bestowed their blind alle-
giance.
This critical period in Zionism coincided with the tremendous
growth of revolutionary trends in Russia. The Jews were strongly
attracted by the Russian Revolution; hopes for political emancipa-
tion and even for broader national rights became so wide-spread
that even extreme Zionist circles embraced this blinding illusion.
The Socialist-Zionist parties actively participated in the Russian
Revolution. The Russian General Zionist Organization, then the
strongest and most influential of the parties within the World Zion-
ist Organization, initiated a broad national program of activity in
the Diaspora (Helsinki, 1906). Even the few hundred pogroms in
the days of the 1905 October Revolution did not deter the Rus-
sian Zionists from their energetic program in the Diaspora. The
prospects for immigration to Palestine were at that time very weak.
And such was the political mood not only in Russia. In Galicia,
too, which boasted the second strongest Zionist movement in the
uation resulted —
Arabs constituted the majority in those Jew-
^the
pogroms and more in the few days of the October Revolution, the
more violent pograms of 1906 in Bialostok and Sedliez all this —
shook the Jewish population of Russia to its roots and produced
two results: larger masses fled overseas, especially to America;
the disappointed Jewish intellegentsia increasingly sought means
of organizing and directing the energies of the wandering masses
toward a radical solution of the Jewish problem. In the first four
years of the twentieth century, 160,206 Jews from Russia and
Poland emigrated to the United States; in the next four years
(1904-1907), their number more than doubled —410,098.
During these same years various territorial projects and organi-
zations came into being which approached the Jewish problem as
if it were solely one of immigration. They believed that favorable
colonization conditions in a free land were sufficient to attract the
Jewish masses to any giveti place which would then become a home
for the homeless Jewish people. Those Zionist circles, however,
whose approach to thejewish problem embraced all its historical
estine. But they had to seek new ways and means to conquer the
difficult colonization obstacles in Palestine. It was at this point
'
Although the trickle of Chalutzim into Palestine was not too
sln>ngv\nevertheless the contribution they made to that which was
latm* crciated there is beyond evaluation. In a few short years
these numbered folk-idealists laid the foundation of the coloni-
zation forms which later became the model for the entire agricul-
tural program. Life changed and corrected much in the early
collective settlements, and today Palestine offers the entire scale
of Socialist colonies from extreme commun istic, which include
cooperative kitchens and a cooperative child education system, to
colonies based on a minimum of cooperative principles, such as
cooperative buying and selling, and cooperation in agriculture.
But the great influence that the first collectives had on the develop-
ment of the entire economy of the country, including that of the
cities, was most important. This cooperative principle, to the ex-
tent that it has been realized in Palestine, is not to be found any-
this small group that the nucleus of teachers and leaders arose who
later became the guides and founders of all hnancial and political
end goal was everywhere the same: to poison the life of the Jews
to such an extent would be forced to flee. Physical in-
that they
security mounted . Economic displacement assumed dangerous pro-
portions. Social isolation increased the stifled atmosphere. The
goal had been reached — the Jewish drive to emigrate was ever
increasing.
The Bolshevik Revolution, with its nationalizations and con-
fiscations, ruined more than half of the Jewish population of
Russia. This was concrete proof that socialism must, in its early
stages, adversely affect Jews more strongly than non- Jews; be-
longing as they do to the urban social classes, Jews must neces-
sarily be the first victims of the change from capitalism to so-
cialism.
In countries neighboring on Russia, a few hundred thousand
refugees gathered, fleeing from the pogroms and the Bolshevistic
m EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
There were more then enough of real and potential im-
regime.
migrants in Europe, and the numbers were constantly mounting.
Jews set out to all comers of the world, seeking a place of refuge.
But as early as 1920, the United States, the main country of ab-
sorption, began imposing immigration restrictions and in 1924 —
quotas were imposed which practically closed the doors to the
Jews of those countries from which they wanted most to flee.
period.
This was just one side of the picture; but real life is many-
sided, often complicated and conflicting. During these very years
of unrest and disappointment in the Diaspora, there were also
anumber of incidents of cultural re-awakening.
The new life being evolved in Palestine had a profound effect
upon the Diaspora community: Jewish youth went to Palestine in
droves, but large masses stayed behind and began to prepare them-
selves, physically, occupationally and cultural-linguistically, for
(diyah (immigration to Palestine). The word aliyah was magic
to the ears of the youth. The countries of Eastern Europe became
dotted with tens of hachsharah (agricultural) places, hundreds of
chalutz kibbutzim (urban collectives), with Zionist sport organi-
zations, with Hebrew schools—folk schools, high schools, evening
classes.The Zionist movement sprouted new wings. Its activity
grew from day to day. It not only did not negate the Diaspora,
but, on the contrary, threw itself into a prodigious folk-work: re-
organizing the Kehilloth (Community organizations) on democra-
tic foundations; creating institutions for economic self-help; con-
ducting schools and courses for handicraft workers, etc.
ZIONISM 639
years when the heavy tread of the pending disaster was already
to be heard.
The unused and pent-up revolutionary energies of those Russian
Jews who had been cut from Russia sought their expression in
the newly formed states in whichthey now lived. Although the po-
litical and economic conditions in these new countries were not
the more the Jews are persecuted, the more nationally conscious
they become, the more productive does the work in their own
backyard become.
For the first time in the long history of the^ Jewish Diaspora
immigration to Palestine assumed large proportions. Of the
680,000 Jews who left Europe between 1919 and 193.1, 135,000
of the country, that the newcomers were forced to leant what had
now become the language of the country. The Zionist institutions,
tination, but with the hope that somewhere they would find a place
Differentiation
sued: on the one hand, the concrete immediate needs and interests
of the working class and its socialist ideals, on the other hand, the
national interests of the Jewish people which demand sacrifices
from all classes and do not always coincide with the special inter-
ests of the working class. Here, too, it was necessary to find a syn-
thesis, a compromise between class interests and national interests.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANTI-SEMITISM
by
Jacob Lestchinsky
649
650 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
era. In the majority of the European countries, Jews were also
excluded from the handicrafts (with the exception of only a few
which they needed from the ritual point of view, like baking,
tailoring, or even butchering). The Jews felt that their property,
as well as their very lives, were always at the mercy of a sudden
whim of a ruler or violent outburst of a religious fanatic, and
since they always had to be ready for a sudden, quick escape,
they kept their possessions in “liquid” form, easily transportable.
The emancipation of the Jews (18th -19th century) brought
about a radical change in the relationship between the Gentile
world and Jewry. For the first time in history the Jews in Europe
were looked upon as citizens of equal rights in the countries of
their birth and residence; and, for the first time, also the Jews
became conscious of their rights: not only their right to exist,
but their right to play some part in the cultural and political life
of the Diaspora countries.
In the words of the Declaration of Independence, “All men are
born equal,” there was given the simplest and, at the same time,
the highest formula, politically and morally, of all European
revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries; yet the materialization
of this formula, the virtual admission of Jews to all fields of
social and economic activity, was a result of a relentless struggle,
and the process of the virtual emancipation of Jews was largely
different in scope and tempo in different countries.
Since the Jews belonged, both socially and politically, to the
underprivileged groups, they had everything to gain and nothing
to lose from the establishment of democratic institutions in the
Diaspora countries. The Jews belonged neither to the politically
dominating groups nor to the feudal class; nor, as a matter of
course, did they share any privileges of the clergy. Therefore,
the overwhelming majority of Jews was progressive minded as
and economic que^ions were concerned. Through-
far as political
out Europe they were intensely involved in political and cultural
struggles; everywhere they felt the impact of the traditionally
anti-Semitic minded domineering groups and classes; several
ANTI-SEMITISM 651
men, such as Marx and Lasalle, Heine and Boerne, came from
their midst.The Jews also played an important part in the de-
velopment of modern capitalism, especially in the countries of
Central and Eastern Europe: But, since the development of in-
dustry and trade jolted some groups of artisans and small shop-
keepers from their economic positions, the Jews were blamed for
all their mishaps, and new fuel was added to the anti-Semitic
feelings.
Gentile society, like all societies, is certainly not uniform, at»d its
attitude toward the Jews runs the whole gamut, from grim haired,
to sincere sympathy, to equal association. In normal times the
Jewish question represents just one of many problems around
which the political, economic and ideological struggle is concen-
trated. In times of severe crisis and sharp social encounters,
however, the deeply rooted hatred for Jews sweeps over society;
and that movement which sees in radical anti-Semitism the only
solution of the Jewish problem usually carries the day.
were of a political and economic nature, and that its leaders main-
ly came from the lay “intelligentsia.”
In harmony with the positivistic and naturalistic spirit pre-
vailing today, the anti-Semitic movement has replaced the reli-
gious element with the racial one —and this is even more useful
for the purpose of eliminating Jewish competition. In addition,
the new orientation on the principle of race prevents certain cir-
cles of assimilated Jews from deserting the creed of their fathers.
ANTI-SEMITISM 653
obstacle to keep the Jews from enjoying the closest economic and
cultural relations with the Gentile world, as well as from occu-
pying high economic and social positions among the Gentiles. But
as soon as conditions grow difficult and restlessness prevails; when
economic crisis, intense political struggle, disastrous epidemics
and hunger jeopardize a nation, dynamic anti-Semitism immedi-
ately tries to utilize the disturbed situation, the excited mood and
nervous strain of the masses. It swerve's the inclination of masses
towards murder and looting, which is natural in such times, against
the Jews. No matter how innocent Jews may be of the misfortunes
of a nation, the instigators of pogroms easily discover a spark to
kindle that powder-barrel of hatreil which lies uncovered in the
soul of the ignorant and eagerly awaits such a spark to explode
in jubilant violence.
Dynamic anti-Semitism shows, despite all its variance through
various times in various countries, the following two general and
permanent traits
Russia.
fied.*
the world where they would represent anything more than a mi-
nority; they belong to the weakest and most helpless social groups,
all over; and, at the same time, they are comparatively the richest.
Even while the Jewish state existed, only slightly more than
twenty per cent of all Jews lived in Palestine and for almost
nineteen centuries now the Jews have been living in complete
Diaspora. They survived persecutions and attempts at their anni-
hilation; they withstood the process of assimilation, despite their
stormy history.
The Jews live as a minority in more than ninety different
countries. In the past, the Jews have lived in every civilized
country at every epoch. And
15 years during which the
in the
situation in Europe gradually became more and more difficult and,
finally, quite intolerable for them, they penetrated into every
colony, every habitable island, every “hole” which was not herme-
tically sealed against them.
Modern Anti-Semitism
At the end of the 19th century, this huge part of Europe be-
came involved an intense rural and political struggle for liber-
in
ation. Large masses of the population were pulled into this strug-
gle; they became more active politically, and this made them
more active, ambitious and experienced in economics.
Eighty-six percent of all European Jews and over 60 percent of
the world Jewry lived in this part of Europe (in 1900). The Jews
there were the main bearers of trade, industry and craftsmanship.
In some regions, the Jews comprised 80 to 90 percent of all shop-
keepers in many places even more than 90 percent.
;
tacks. Only the Nazi occupation gave the French anti-Semites all
the freedom of action and all the opportunities for aggressiveness
they desired.
The situation in Germany was quite different. The central
that was Jewish. All attempts made by individual Jews and or-
upon whom to vent oif their wrath; they found both in the Jewish
people. When, a few years later, a severe economic crisis gripped
Germany, (with six million unemployed workers, many thousands
of jobless lawyers, physicians, journalists, and writers, and her
entire economic life thoroughly disorganized), the stage was com-
pletely set for Hitler’s appearance.
The plight of Jews in the Eastern-European countries was of
a different nature. In Russia and Rumania, in the last portion of
the 19th century the governments kept the Jewish population
in a permanent .state of fear of pogroms. In 1871 there occurred
the first pogrom in Odessa, and between 1881 and 1882 there
were about two hundred pogroms in as many different places. The
dreadful pogrom in Kishinew (1903) shocked public opinion
throughout the world and evoked energetic protests on the part of
the American and British governments. How effective these pro-
the social life of that time, the participation of the masses in the
political struggle — all this created a favorable atmosphere for
the utilization of anti-Jewish feelings as a weapon which politi-
shake the Russian peasantry out of its apathy; as soon as the peas-
antry discarded its customary inertia, it would be possible to direct
its wrath against the landlords and the government, and thus carry
out revolutionary upheaval. Jewish blood as a lubricant for the
wheels of the Russian revolution! — ^This later became a popular
“It happened like this in Baltic conniries, in Kiev, and in other cities. It is
just this expertliness, this planned program, just this sort of cold-hlooded and bull-
necked crookedness of the organisers, that is the best proof that the gentlemen of
order have themselves created this bastardliness, either as disguised policemen in
person or as persons that have received the former’s blessings.” Tolstoy published
this article in Germany since, because of Tsarist censorship, he was prevented from
publishing it in Russia.
ANTI-SEMITISM (567
slogan; was quite clear that every unsuccessful riot against the
it
its ignorance, believed that taking over the small and dirty stands
in the suburbs where Jews toiled for 18 hours a day and hardly
earned a crust of dry bread would solve the problems of its
poverty.
However, anti-Semitism had already expanded beyond the bor-
ders of national governments. Hitler brilliantly showed the world
how easily betrayal, espionage, quislings, and fifth coloumnists
can be propagandized and won over to the cause of Nazism with
the help of Jew-hatred. He used anti-Semitism to establish spe-
cial agencies throughout the entire world; these agencies were
to serve Germany in peace, as well as in war. Anti-Semitism was
the iron bridge by means of which Hitler was trying to achieve
his goal of dividing the population even in such traditionally
democratic countries as England, France, Holland, Belgium, and
Denmark. With the help of anti-Semitism, Hitler set up centers
668 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
of Nazi propaganda in South America, North Africa, and vir-
tually the whole world.
During the first period of its development in countries with
a small percentage of Jews and with strong democratic tradition.
Fascism was not As is well known, Mussolini
at all anti-Semitic.
scoffed at Hitler’s race theory and not only admitted the Jews
to the Fascist Party but even appointed them to high Party and
the language of the country and directed from the central office
in Germany.
(c) Leaders of the local Fascist and generally reactionary
organizations were won over was
to the belief that anti-Semitism
the best and most appealing means of arousing the masses and
achieving their goal of attainment of political power.
As early as 1924, the Nazi Party founded a large magazine,
Der Weltkampf, which outwardly gave the impression of being
a scientific publication; it attempted to prove the anti-Semitic
theory scientifically. This magazine was distributed throughout
the world, and especially within German colonies, even before the
Nazi Party established a special nucleus in many German colonies
in Europe, America and Africa. But only when they came to
fessors were established for the sole purpose of studying the Jew-
ish question. Two tasks were undertaken hy these institutes:
(1) To prove that the Jews dominated the world financially,
economically, culturally and spiritually.
(2) To prove that the Jewish race exercised a bad influence
upon all nations wherever they lived.
The Nazi “professors” performed their task with great zeal and
perfidy. They published hundreds of books in which they tried
to prove the thesis that the Jews provide the greatest misfortunes
to the world; and that the recovery of the world from all catastro-
plans for the invasion of Poland had been completed by the Ger-
mans. That issue of the Weltdienst appeared shortly after the
International Antisemitic Congress of 1939. It brought greetings
from France, Italy, Rumania, England, Russian refugees, Hun-
gary, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Poland, Holland, Denmark, Spain, Ar-
gentina, United States, North Africa, Canada, and Portugal six-
teen nations, in all.
In all the American countries, loo, the Black Shirt and Yellow
organizations of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, etc., were
at Hitler’s disposal. And, in the United States, a network of spies
existed which was intensely
and widespread, as had been
active
proved by scores of documents found in the archives of the Ger-
man Embassy. At the trial of the traitors in Washington, it was
established that as early as 1938 Bund members distributed leaf-
lets asserting that the Jews are responsible for all trouble and that
the United States would also be forced into war against Germany
and Japan.”
The same leaflets said that “The press, radio and movies, all
controlled by the Jews, filled the whole country with propaganda
aiming at a war against Germany. The Americans do not want
any war with Germany or Japan. The Americans do not want
any war with anybody. And the Germans as well as the Japanese
» L. C., p. 59.
do not want any war with the Americans. The only people who
drive towards war are the Jews.”'”
This was written in 1938, when Germany w^as the only country
feverishly preparing for war and when Goering boasted that Ger-
many possessed the strongest airforce.
Ibid.
HlBLIOGRArilY
Essays on Anti-Semitism, New York, 1946.
Parkes, James: The Jewish Problem in the Modern If'orld, New York,
J939.
Sartre, Jean-Paui.; Portrait of the Anti-Semite, New York, 1940,
Vishniak, Mark; An International Convention Against Anti-Semitism,
New York, 1946.
CpuDENHOVE, Graf Heinrich: Antisemitismus, Vienna, 1932.
—
Anti-Semitism A Social Disease, New York, 1946.
Valentin, Hugo: Anti-Semitism, New York, 1936.
Feniciiel, 0.: “Psychoanalysis of Anli-Semilism,” American Imago,
1940.
Hitler's Ten-Year War on the Jews, Institute of Jewish Affairs, New
York, 1943.
Weinrkicii, Max: Hitler’s Professors, New York, 1940.
laviNGSTON, Sigmund: Must Men Hate? New York, 1944.
xvn.
The Origins of Fascism
XVII.
677
678 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
world role of Italian culture and action had come to an end with
the end of the High Renaissance, say with the sack of Rome, 1527,
and with the fall of the Florentine Republic, 1530. It follows,
then, that nothing really important such as the creation of fascism
could haih originated in a second-class nation. The second as-
sumption is that the Italian people are well-known and always
were well-known for their keen individualism, which positively
accounted for much of Italian culture and art while negatively
it accounted for the Italian lack of discipline and efficiency. It
Yet facts must be taken for what they are, even when they run
counter to habits and expectations. The fact is that fascism in its
formative period is an Italian phenomenon. A second fact, cor-
related with the first, is that practically nothing in the
Nazi men-
tality and action can be explained without the Italian antecedent.
Hitler, of course, is the most authoritative witness. His funda-
mental acknowledgment in Mein Kampf reads as follows:
In those days —
I admit it openly —
I conceived the most pro-
found admiration for that great man south of the Alps who,
full of ardent love for his people, would not deal with the
Mussolini had not yet to his credit any final accomplishment ex-
cept the totally autocratic seizure of his native Italy: a man rather
of words than of deeds, and the neologist forger of winged and
felicitous slogans such as Fascist, Totalitarian, Corporative. But
he seemed already very great to Hitler, the obscure rioter in a
Munich Bierhalle, the untiring scribbler in a Bavarian fortress.
It was on March 23, 1919, that a small group of malcontents
Mia. The basic motives are distress and anger at the inferiority
of Italy as compared with the rising nations of Europe, and the
medicine that is proposed to make up for such a decadence con-
sists of the restoration of Roman pride and virtue.
This complex was never deleted or considerably weakened.
Exceptions can be listed, but they remain exceptions. Even the
greatest among the Italian poets of the nineteenth century, Leo-
pardi, starts from same antimony of superiority and inferiority
the
national complexes that had ruled the Italian mind in the pre-
ceding centuries. The conclusions of his poetry and of his thought
seem to be conditioned by supranational and supratemporal situ-
ations of the human heart and mind. They seem to appeal to the
permanent qualities of sorrow, hope, and despair. But the origins
of his attitude are clearly stated in his early poems. It is again
the restlessness and dissatisfaction of the heir to Rome whose
life and energy are wasted in mediocre and humiliating circum-
stances. The Risorgimento — that is, the movement that led Italy to
the establishment of her political independence in the United King-
dom proclaimed in 1861 —was work of prophets and heroes,
the
some of whom tried new paths. Yet even the one who was the
most revolutionary-minded among them could not wean them from
the suggestions of Roman superiority. Even in Mazzini’s scheme
of a federated mankind, Rome and the Italians were assigned a
central place, and the mission which was assigned to his own nation
was, after all, of a sacerdotal and hegemonic nature. The name
itself, Risorgimento — resurrection — points again to the ineradic-
able Italian idea that the past is good and beautiful and that no
hope for the future can be substantiated with anything that is
not the reinstatement and the revindication of the past.
There is no necessity to beautify with lenient words the moral
and intellectual error of such an attitude. The claim to the match-
le.ss nobility of Roman heritage and to the endless mission of
here, after all, that lies the seed of any kind of nationalism and
racialism.
The habitual or automatic thinking insists on the undisciplined
or even loose individualism of the Italian character. It has in-
sisted formany generations on the lack of religious conviction,
and on the noncommittal or even pagan attitude of the Italians
toward Christianity and Catholicism, in spite of the fact that the
historical seat of universal Christianity has been in their coun-
try. Obviously there is a point in this contention if we consider
separate individual experiences and the surface of things as
they appear to the momentary observer. There are, however, other
points if we look sum-up of Italian behavior and
at the historical
if we consider in the Catholic Church the elements of its political
structure rather than the theological and ethical elements that
the Roman Church owes to primitive Christianity. The definition
according to which the Roman Church is the ghost of the deceased
THE ORIGINS OF FASCISM 683
The third element that must be kept in mind besides the two
elements of world unity and Italian primacy is authority. Through
a long and consistent process of centuries the authority of the
Roman Church on the minds, and when possible on the bodies,
of members became sacrosanct and irresistible. The right to
its
seems apparent that the unity of the Roman Church could not
be preserved after the Protestant upheaval if not at the price of
the strictest intellectual and ethical discipline. After the storms
of the early sixteenth century the organization of the Church was
stabilized as a foursquare authoritarian and totalitarian system
with the main authority acting as an imperil power and with the
684 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
main orders, prominent among them the Jesuit order, acting al-
together as an army and a police, although the army was not ne-
cessarily armed with physical weapons and although the police
could not always count on secular help.
It is true that the attempts of the city-states in the late Middle
Ages gave glorious inspirations to the modern theories of democ-
racy and political freedom. There may still be a point in the ro-
mantic theory of Sismondi, according to whom modern freedom
was first invented in those brilliant communities of central and
northern Italy between the eleventh and the thirteenth century.
It is true that some of the leading trends of the Risorgimento in
the nineteenth century had kept clear of the Roman complexes
of world authority and Romano — Italian primacy, and that spirits
like Manzoni and Cavour and Garibaldi did not care for anything
but a dignified and free life of the Italian nation in the brother-
hood of the other nations.
It also is true that the confused but powerfully creative move-
ments of the Italian Renaissance had contributed decisively to
the formation of modern individualism. The Renaissance, how-
ever, collapsed and its continuative outcome was the establish-
ment of the political tyranny in the country, whether of inner or
of foreign origin, and the final establishment of the universal
authoritarianism in the Roman Church. In other terms, the prob-
lem should be formulated as follows: are there elements of free-
dom and individual initiative prevalent in the p.sychological build-
up of the Italian mind from the collapse of the old Roman Em-
pire to the rise of fascism? Or is the contrary true? The most
enduring experiences came from the authority of the Roman Em-
pire and from the authority of the Roman Pope, from Caesars and
high priests. These two sets of experiences were practically un-
broken through about fifteen centuries. The others' were com-
paratively fragmentary and temporary. On the whole, the Italian
mind was prepared by the longest experience in centralized au-
thority which Western history records — to submission both in
things of the faith and in things of action.
THE ORIGINS OF FASCISM 685
as lately introduced.”
A few years later and exactly on the eve of the occupation of
Rome by freethinking Italy the Dogma of Papal Infallibility was
promulgated. This formulation established on an unshakable ba-
sis the authoritarian and totalitarian quality of the Roman Church.
At that time this seemed to liberals to be nothing but wet light-
the alleged failure of the Italian military effort and on the al-
leged frustration of Italian diplomacy in the negotiations for
peace, looks more impressive at first, but it does not stand the
test of factual examination.
Of all battles that were fought on the Italian sector of the
World War by far the most famous is Caporetto, October, 1917.
THE ORIGINS OF FASCISM 689
i
the aspect of a desperate flight. Yet this flight and the advance
of the enemy invasion were stopped in a very few days at a com-
paratively short distance from the earlier alignment. Not even
Venice was lost.
cism.
The losses of Italy during the war were appalling. The dead
alone numbered between six and seven hundred thousand. It cer-
colonial territories but saw the ties within the Empire dangerously
loosened. America started immediately after the armistice her
complaints about having been exploited and plundered by the
Allies without any gain for herself. Yet none of these countries
was elected by destiny as the birthplace of fascism.
Of all the combatant nations, Italy was the one who saw her
so-called hereditary enemy, Austria-Hungary, go to pieces. She
acquired a continental frontier of mountain ridges than which
only the ditch around the British Isles could be considered more
comfortable. Around her frontier only minor states, Jugoslavia
and Switzerland — not at all dangerous —remained alive, and
France at the west. No aggressive intention whatsoever could be
attributed to France. Italian colonial acquisitions were small or
altogether irrelevant, but no real national passion stood behind the
colonial demands. They had been slighted by Italy herself in her
Hit) words anyhow had a familiar ring for Italian ears. Eliza-
beth Barrett had voiced them in her Mazzinian English, from the
Florence that is no more, nearly a century ago. “Civilization per-
fected,” she said, “is fully developed Christianity.” She said to
the anarchy of the nations? The answer was: Roman Empire, Ger-
man Empire. That answer is dust. The problem is bequeathed by
the dying to the living; as all epilogues are prologues.^
' The above esbay on ihe Oiigins of Fascism had bei-n first written as a lecture
for Oberlin College on the invitation of President E. tf. Wilkins, four years after
the publication of Borgcse’s (ioliath, the March of Fascism (19.37). It had been
included, immediately after the nineteenth birthday of Fascism (Ocloher 28, 1941)
in a .Sympn.'ium, Democracy Is Different ((iarl Frederick Wittke and otitcis. Harper
& Brothers, New York).
Another essay, by the same author, (Commemoration of Fascism, was published in
The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1945.
The opening paragraph, a reference to the twenty-second —and last birthday of — _
Fascism, echoed the opening lines of the previous essay: “There was no celebration
in Rome last October of the March on Rome —
birth date, back in 1922, of Italian
and World Fascism.”
—
The closing paragraphs framed in the new events and new fears.^ and hopes
the statements and analyses of the Origins of Fascism as well as of Goliath and of
other books and essays by the same author.
xvm.
Fascism
XVIIL
FASCISM
Guenthek Reiman
697
698 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
only at a later stage, in 1929, during the last year of the prosperity
era ,of world capitalism, during the inter-war period, 1918-1939,
and at the beginning of the great pre-war depression. But the
Corporate State remained a mere myth for several years. Only
when it became clear that the great depression was not a mere
cyclical crisis of capitalism, and that permanent mass unemploy-
ment and lack of profitable investments for “idle capital” im-
periled the economic foundation of the State, the Corporations be-
came active organizations. They were to control and regiment all
In the early stages of the corporations, the State used the Cor-
porations in the sphere of labor, and to a great extent, ahso against
the middle class organizations, while the big industrialists and
bankers .still retained much independent influence and were per-
mitted to elect the leaders of their own organizations.
Two years after the inauguration of the Corporate Slate, the lat-
ter appeared as a mere myth and the claim for basic social and
economic changes a mere fake.
2 .lohn Slractiey, The Nature of the Capitalist Crisis, New York, 19.15, p. ,5.57.
FASCISM 701
,
ought to be directed to certain definite aims, it is precisely the
economic phenomenon, which interests the whole of the citizens.
Not only industrial economy ought to be disciplined, but also
agricultural economy, commercial economy, banking «;onomy,
and even the work of artisans.
This meant in practice that the power of the Party hierarchy was
increased to such an extent that it could overrule the Army and
the old conservative Civil Service bureaucracy.
The terms “Left” and “Right” only refer to the relative strength
The chiel' editor of The Daily Herald, organ of the Labor Parly,
wrote on June 6, 1934, after a visit to Italy:
terventionists.
It was in the third period — after 1929 —that the true signifieatire
of fascism became apparent. The deadlock of the market system
was evident. Until then fascism had been hardly more than a
trait in Italy’s authoritarian government, which otherwise dif-
nomic changes would only prove that Italian fascism was not yet
fully developed. Even when the Corporate State was formally in-
troduced, fascism had not yet shown its real nature. This only hap-
pened when the Corporate organizations became tools of national
planning.
Thus fascism is represented as the beginning of a new Civiliza-
Guerin and others have pointed out that the political methods
of fascism are designed to increase the rate of profits for the pri-
vate capitalists, or at least for “big business.” But actually. Fas-
cism increases the unproductive parasitic expenditures of the
State enormously. It orders new investments in spheres which
sustain the power of the State without too much concern for the
rate of profit. Shortly, Fascism must requisition a huge portion
of the profits, with the result that most capitalist enterprises are
threatened by bankruptcy.
The rate of profit continues its decline, and many private capi-
talists must think in terms of their rate of losses. They may be
forced by the State to continue work and production though they
cannot realize a profit.
they grow to such an extent that the incentive for the producers
to produce, and for the workers to work shrink, and finally may
decline to such an extent that personal initiative can no longer
be encouraged by the State. Many individuals seek to circum-
vent the controls of the State in spite of terrific risks. They are
unwilling to produce. Therefore, the State must organize special
organs of control and coercion.
This was one of the original tasks of the corporate organization
in Italy, and one of the reasons for their foundation.
But these organizations contribute to the growth of the bu-
reaucracy and of unproductive expenditures. The system works
with a dwindling margin of success. Then new national monopo-
lies must be organized, and the latter fuse with the organizations
feature —
will be more clearly recognized after the second world
war than before. During the first years of fascist rule in Italy or
National Socialism in Germany, the character of Fascism was
obscured by mysticism and mere political methods of suppression.
It seemed Fascism was only a change of political methods
that
of rule without attempting to change the economic foundation.
The Fascist leaders themselves did not conceive any social or eco-
FASCISM 709
able to provide the means for the maintenance of the huge in-
sity, with the political power greatly extended and the economic
foundation greatly weakened.
710 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
The bureaucratic fascist, national socialist or nationally planned
state Is like a gigantic parasite who must eat up more than the ex-
ploited economic body can deliver, yet, the parasite cannot be-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bonomi, I.: From SocaUsm to Fascism, 1924.
Borcese, G. a.: Goliath: The March of Fascism, 1937.
Ferrero, G.: Four Years of Fascism, 1924.
Matteotti, G.: The Fascisti Exposed, 1924.
Mussolini, Benito: The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism, 1935.
Nenni, P.: Ten Years of Tyranny in Italy, 1932.
Nitti, F. F.: Escape, 1930.
Nitti, F. S.: Bolshevism, Fascism and Democracy, 1927.
Salvemini, G.: The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy, 1937.
Sforza, C.: The Real Italians, 1942.
Sturzo, L.: Italy and Fascism, 1926.
XIX.
Hispanidad and
Falangism
;
Editorial Note
ian Fascism with some Nazi tinge was the popular pattern. Spain
had its “Falange” ; England, Sir Oswald Mosley's “Black Shirts"
France, the “Cagoulards" and the “Croix de Feu"; Norway, the
Nazi “National Samling" headed by Quisling; Roumania, the
Iron Guard, led by Codreanu; Hungary, Szdlas^s Arrow Cross;
Croatia, the “Ustachi” commanded by Pavelitch; Poland, the
National Radical Organization (ONR) and the “Falanga"; and
Slovakia, the autonomous movement commanded by Tiso with
the. Hlinka Guard. beyond the scope of this volume even to
It is
713
—
XIX.
by
Stephen Naft
714
HISPANIDAD AND FALANGISM 715
The Falangists seriously believed that they would get their share
of the world — the Western hemisphere at least — ^after the victory
of the Axis powers, of which they were fully convinced.
A few years before the organization of the first groups sworn
to the destruction of the Spanish Republican regime and before the
creation of the word “Falangism,” a series of articles entitled
the time of Philip II, and there was no doubt in Maeztu’s mind
that the manifest destiny of Spain was to regain the lost empire.
There is, however, a slight difference between Maeztu’s rationali-
zation of the aspirations of Hispanidad and Hitler’s justification
of German world rule. Maeztu rejects the racial principles of the
Nazis. He bases the right of Spain to rule again over half the
world, including all peoples which once were under Spanish rule,
on the combination of tradition, history, religion, and “spiritual
heritage,” regardless of race, color and language. Thus we read
in his book (third edition) :
KUROi’EAN IDEOLOGIES
It should 1% accepted in the sense that we Spaniards do nut
attach any importance to the blood or the color of the skin,
because what we call Raza does not consist of these character-
isticswhich can be transiniltcd by vague protoplasmic mysteries,
hut by those which are the light of the spirit, such as language
and faith. Hispanidad is composed of men of all races, white,
black, Indian and Malay and its mixtures, and it would be
absurd to seek characteristics by the methods of ethnography.
. . . Neither by those of geography. Hispanidad is not restricted
to one territory; it has many and wery different ones. , . .Tlic
were ruled by the same monarchs from 1580, the year of the
annexation of Portugal until 1640 the year of its separation,
and before and afterwards by two peninsular monarchies, since
the year of the discovery until the separation of the nations of
America. All these owe their civilization to Spain and Portugal.
. .The community of Spanish peoples cannot be that of voy-
.
agers traveling in the same boat, who, after having lived together
for a few days, say good-bye to each other never to meet again.
. . . All of their sentiment of unity, which docs not
them conserve
consist in merely speaking the same language, or in the coni-
iiiunity of historic origin. Neither can it be expressed ade-
quately by saying that it is solidarity; the Dictionary «>f the
Maeztu is, however, not satisfied with the return of the former
Spanish possessions. He looks beyond that:
National Syndicalism
of Spanish type.
4. Our armed forces on land, on the seas and in the air shall
be as powerful and as numerous as will be necessary to guaran-
tee to Spain at any time its complete independence and its place
in the world hierarchy to which it is entitled.
5. Spain will again seek its glory and its riches across the seas.
Spain must aspire to be a great maritime power for dangiw
HISPANIDAD AND FALANGISM 721
and for trade. We demand for our country the same predomin*
ancy (hierarchy) in the navies as in the air.
lessly abolish the system of political parties with all its in-
izing its destiny, the Chief assumes in its entire plenitude the
most absolute authority. The Caudillo is responsible only to God
and history.”
The establishment of the falangist regime in Spain had been
proclaimed as the creation of the “New Spain.” How new this
The Kequetes were the Falangist of the past and the Falaugisls
arc the Traditionalists of the present.
For the America of our culture, our faith and our blood, we
wish more than just living together, more than friendshij). We
desire unity, unity) of mind, unity of economy, unity of power.
We desire to put an end to “Monroeism” in order to replace it
would one day march toward honor and glory, leaving behind
them legalistic scruples. We had therefore to fight against the
erroneous idea piopagated at limes in certain Catholic circles,
sire of fusion with all Spanish peoples is at this time the essen-
tial part of our program, of our longing for the future” . . .
characteristic enough, but the arrows in the emblem are the same
used in the sixteenth century by Spain to symbolize the conquest
of the Americas.
Consejos de Hispanidad
tablish air and naval bases in South America, the open and se-
cret falangists organizations campaigned violently against any
kind of defense plans in the Latin American countries and against
hemisphere solidarity in general. (In this they were supported
at the other end of the political rainbow by th(5 Communists be-
The Nazis called, or still call, any country in which there are
Germans a Gau (canton). The falangists, copying this system,
call every one of their groups in Latin America “provincial fal-
ange.” But due to the identity of language, religion, family re-
following oatli:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Books
Anonymous: Doclrina e Historia de la Revolucion Espanola, Barce-
lona, 1939, A. Nunez, 74 p. (This book contains the “26 Points”
of the
Falangist Program and the complete text of the “Fuero de Trabaio”
the Fdangist Chart of Labor.)
Benkyto, Perez Juan: El Nuevo Estado Espanol. El Regimen, nacional-
sindicalista ante la tradicion de los
demos ststemas totaUtarios, Madrid-
.
Editorial Note:
739
operated closely and intimately for a generation. / remem-
ber many years ago my father telling me: “If ydu want to
understand Germany you must read Foerster, and I repeat
it to you who are listening to us today : You must read’
Foerster’*
Mr. Friedrich Stampfer was one of the most prominent leaders
of the Social Democratic Party. Editor-in-chief of the largest So-
cialist daily in Europe (and the world) “Vorwarts,” (Berlin),
740
a few who predicted it: Heinrich Heine, in his “Letters on Ger-
many'' wrote: “Do not fear, however, you German radicals, the
German revolution will not be any the milder and gentler because
it was preceded by Kant's ‘Critique,' the transcendentalism of
Fichte, or even by natural philosophy. Through these doctrines
revolutionary forces have been developed which only await the
day when they can break forth and fill the world with horror and
admiration. Armed disciples of Fichte will appear on the scene
whose fanaticism of will can be tamed neither by self-interest nor
fear.
“Kantians will come to light who any reverence what-
will reject
soever, even in the material world, and who will pitilessly plow
up the soil of our European life with sword and axe in order to
grub out even the last roots of the past." And further," . Chris- . .
741
XX.
PANGERMANISM
h
Friedrich W. Foerster
742
PANGERMANISM 743
Between the people and the rulers of Prussia there exists a secret
and after it, particularly in the Hitler era, we realize how great
a contribution towards the rearmament of the German nation
was made by this gigantic effort to distort the truth; not only did
it rearm Germany morally and physically, but it tended to disarm
the neighbors Germany was threatening. Mussolini called this
type of propaganda the “white war” which preceded the red,
bloody war. Germany constantly lied about her true intentions-
and appealed to her neighbors’ ideas of democracy in order to
influence them towards her own schemes for so-called equality and
liberation; such propaganda paved the route to Germany’s big
“surprise.”
had confused and deceived men and had fettered their con-
sciences. Falsehood is labeled truth, and truth falsehood. A power
that has arisen and grown only by Injustice and violence at the ex-
mate aims and about the so-called German people; the latter had
lost any real political substance, and were putty in the hands of
tial and permanent trends, and presents valuable aid in our pres-
ent practical dealings with the results of a long evolution.
The United States, of course, is not an Anglo-Saxon country.
Its population is comprised of all races from all parts of the
world, hut the political community and cooperation of these vari-
ous elements is cemented and protected by the great tradition of
English law and liberty. Thus, at a period of nationalist madness,
America demonstrates the possibility of human community above
the bonds of blood and history. This fact is difficult for the Pan-
german and imperialist mind to comprehend. In 1847 a German
author, Franz Loeher, published a book entitled, History and
Situation of the Germans in America, wherein he concludes with
the following program:
“Indeed, it would form a beautiful historical picture, full of
life, probably even the greatest ever offered: Old Germany in
Europe and Young Germany in America, powerful exchanges of
influence. Old Germany holds the center of Europe and, for a
long time, has dominated that continent spiritually and politically.
She lacerated herself and became exhausted; now she is driving to
new unity. She concentrates her forces and rises to regain her
dominant role — will Young Germany, too, hold the center of
North America, and will it dominate this continent some day?”
will be cut off and border with the German states, whereas the
dominating part of North America will be the center, between the
Ohio and Missouri rivers.”
The book. Our America, published some years ago by the Nazi
agent, Colin Ross, who was forced to leave America because of
his agitation here, is even more incredible and startling. The fol-
tifiably say of the New World across the Atlantic created by us:
Unser Amerika (Our America”).
The same author published another book, America’s Fateful
Hour, in which he asserted that the time had come for America to
make up her mind whether she would continue to impose the in-
herited English form on all elements of non-English origin, or
whether she would draw the consequences from her rapidly chang-
ing ethnic composition, and renounce the English pattern. Then
the thirty million Germans, aided by other anti-British minor-
ities, would soon conquer the leading position in the country. Ac-
PANGERMANISM 753
position in America.”
ordination. The people were not aware of the prizes at stake, nor
the golden chance being offered to Germany.
It is interesting that this man, “one of the nameless mass of
man people did not realize the full significance and potentiali-
ties of the conflict and, therefore, had failed to take their destiny
750 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
in their own hands. The brain-truster of the German General
Staff had returned from Japan, where he had been deeply im-
pressed by the extraordinary unity which, under a mystical auth-
ority enthroned above all common dissension, had welded together
the entire nation. Haushofer believed that the creation of such a
mystical, p’opular authority in Germany was indispensable; it
would bring the whole nation on the side of the military leaders,
and it would arouse their enthusiasm for the re-establishment of
Prussian power — Pangerman program, Haus-
in the service of the
hofer converted Hitler to this program; he even visited him in the
fortress of Landsberg every Wednesday, in an effort to explain
to him the possibilities and means for conquering the world.
won half its battles. The Madrid-Buenos Aires Axis will then be
in a position either to conclude an alliance with the Russians
.
against the United States, after the pattern of the 1939 pact, or to
form a world front with the Anglo-Saxon powers against Russia.
Any such move would be the signal for a German comeback.
According to the German geopoliticians, every war shatters the
status quo. Formerly powerful states are destroyed orcondemned
to play the role of second-rate or third-rate powers, while dynamic
states have an opportunity of winning new positions of power.
The German militarists and geopoliticians hope that the third world
war will result in the destruction of tlie United States and the
Europe from America's tutelage”
“liberation of as well as the
“menace” from Asia.
industrial nations in the world, and she will have been developed
and led by the foremost German technical and military experts.
Since we shall have to cope with a powerful, German-dominated,
Latin-American bloc in the future, how can the United States or
even the UNO possibly control the production of rockets, atomic
bombs, and other secret weapons produced in the Andes Moun-
son justifiably told tbe General: “Hitler’s crimes are your crimes.”
Nationalist Germany is like the legendary serpent whose poison-
swollen mouth produced a new head for every one destroyed;
Pangermanism is the mouth, and Hitler was the latest head. Un-
less we open our eyes in time, they will produce a rich harvest of
new heads.
For Bibliography see next chapter
XXI.
Nazism: Its Spiritual
Roots
XXI.
by
Friedrich Stampfer
Tfi.'i
766 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
character,” as of extremely vehement tensions within the struc-
ture of the German nation in the first decades of our century.
It is a well-known fact that every political revolution on the
European continent was accompanied, interrupted, or followed by
counter-revolutionary movements. Counter-revolutions are the wars
of revenge among the civil wars, and this is one of two facts which
cause their extreme cruelty. The other one is the intellectual and
moral inferiority of the masses, brought into action by them.
These masses consist, generally speaking, of bold adventurers and
illiterate, backward people, led by lust for booty and by super-
stition. The great French Revolution deserves its name not for
the cruelties committed in its course, but in spite of them. It was
a heroic attempt to improve the relations between man and man
with Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity as the ultimate goal. Robes-
pierre was a greater when he pleaded for the abol-
revolutionist
ition of the death penalty than some years later, when he became
the leader of “la Terreur.” Out of the Great Revolution came the
great adventurer Napoleon, the regime of the sabre and the na-
tionalist “gloire.”
time of the terror, when most of his disciples, like Schiller, turned
away with horror. On the other hand, it was the same Friedrich
Schiller who popularized Kantian liberalism and humanism. The
French Revolution came to the Germans with the sword of the
conqueror. The impact of the Napoleonic era was not strong
enough to kill the humanitarian and cosmopolitan spirit of the
fore the beginning of the Nazi reign of terror, not a single execa
tion took place. It is obvious that in Germany, at that time, there
was no “Jewish question” at all. Assimilation, in progress for
many decades, seemed to *be almost total. In government as well
as in business, in the press, and in art, Jews won prominence,
partly because of their ability, partly because they were the most
progressive elements among the intelligentsia. There was no doubt
about their faithfulness to the republic, whereas many University
graduates of another creed or origin still clung to the old ideals
of monarchy and reaction. The revolution of 1918 completed the
transformation of Germany to a democracy of the Western type.
It was no less a revolution because it did not destroy all the rem-
nants of the old constitution and the old society. No revolution in
history was a definite total success.
There are many reasons why this revolution did not go deeper
to the roots of imperial Germany. One of them was, without any
doubt, the outspoken aversion of the Social Democrats to blood-
shed. You may call it, if you wish, “weakness.” Another reason
was their respect for the rules of democracy. There was no ma-
jority in the parliament for the confiscation of the big industrial
plants or for tbe expropriation of the big estates. Moreover, there
were, in fact, good reasons for the postponement of such measures.
Private property was respected by the law of Nations, and the law
of Nations was still in effect, to some extent at least, at that time.
Nationalized property, on the other hand, could be transferred
easily into the possession of the victorious allies, as reparations.
It was also obvious that the expropriation of the big estates and
their partition into small farms could not be accomplished with-
out diminishing the crops and increasing the danger of starva-
tion. But in spite of these good reasons, the shortcomings of the
revolution of 1918 were fatal in their effect. The big industrial-
ists and landowners, most of them hostile to the republic, retained
a tremendous economic power. There were, on the other hand,
the dismissed young officers who knew no other business than war,
^nd the middle class people, ruined by the inflation, all of them
770 '
EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
dissatisfied with the state of the nation and “novarum renim cu-
pidi.” These were the elements out of which emerged the army of
the counter-revolution.
The alliance of the deposed ruling classes with the “lumpen-
proletariat” or mob, for the purpose of regaining power, is by
no means a new experience in human history. Neither is the dic-
tator, called “tyrannos” by the Greeks. Aristotle in his “politics”
one of the most unfortunate events of History, that the partial re-
State is not the science and art of guiding men. Where men in
general may perhaps he satisfied, the particular State may be
ruined . . . The order of politics and the order of conscience are
distinct.” (Mes Idees Politiques) I. P. Mayer in his book “Politi-
cal Thoughts in France” remarks correctly: “The idea of the
nation, once torn from its individual root, easily becomes a cloak
to cover any abuse.” According to his political ideas, Charles
Maurras found nothing wrong in Colonel Henry’s forging of “new
proofs” to condemn Dreyfus. “Among his improvised judges,” he
wrote, “some sincere nitwits thought, as good bailiffs, that the
legality and morals of private life regulate all things — not know-
ing that there exist particular and unwritten laws, a sphere of
morality, higher, more rigorous, and more extensive for human
consciences which are charged with certain general obligations.”
The only fault of Henry, in Maurras’ opinion, was letting himself
be found out. “The irregularity, I will not say the crime, has one
excuse: in success. It must succeed. It ought to succeed.” Maur-
ras criticised Marxism as incompatible with nationalism. “But,”
he added, “socialism freed from the cosmopolitan and democratic
element can fit nationalism like a well-made glove on a beautiful
hand.”
The ideological affinity of tlie French Rightist with the German
National Socialist, their common contempt of morals in politics,
their common hatred of the principles of the Great French Revo-
lution make the weakness of French resistance to the aggression of
1940 more understandable. Charles A. Micaud, in his book “The
French Right and Nazi Germany, 1933-1939,” has this explana-
tion for the phenomenon: “For the extreme Right, democracy was
the enemy as much as communism; the coming war appeared to
them as a struggle between the democratic ideal of the republic
that they had always condemned, and their own conception of au-
thoritarian government, which was defended by the enemies of
France.”
Arthur de Gobineau’s influence on the Nazi mentality was deep
and decisive. The same cannot be said of Barres oy Maurras.
m EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
Their examples may he used only to show that this mentality is
one who replaced the myth of the general strike with the m}rth of
the nation. In his famous speech of October 1922, before his
march on Rome, he said: “We have created a myth. It must not
be a reality; it is an impulse, a creed, a courage. Our myth is the
Nation, the Great Nation which we intend to make a reality.”
Less harmonious were the relations between Sorel and Lenin.
Sorel celebrated Lenin as a true leader, as a “Great Czar,” in the
same manner as he had celebrated Mussolini as a “condottiere.”
Lenin, however, disdainfully, called Sorel a muddle head.
There was irreconcilable antagonism between Georges Sorel
and Jean Jaures. The latter was a studied philosopher and his-
it that the ideas of the bourgeoisie do not poison the rising class,
ing away from reason and in his genius of leading the masses
hy irrational means. He was neither a statesman nor even a poli-
tician of average intelligence but the greatest political stage mana-
ger and popular actor of all times. There is no evidence that he
or his skilled co-manager, Joseph Coebbels, had read Le Bon’s
“Psychology of the Masses” themselves. However, many passages
of “Mein Kampf” appear to be nothing but coarsened paraphrases
of Le Bon’s ingenious remarks.
English Influences
country the ablest man that exists there; raise him to the supreme
place and loyally reverence him; you have a perfect government
for that country. No ballot box, parliamentary eloquence, voting,
constitution building or other machinery can improve it a whit.
It is the perfect state, the ideal country.” William M. McGovern
in his book “From Luther to Hitler” is right when he remarks:
“When we read Carlyle and then look to the later developments
in European politics, no one can fail to be struck by the fact
that Carlyle’s works appear to be little more than a prelude to
nazism and Hitler. Carlyle preached to the English, but his ser-
mons were taken seriously not by the English but by the Germans.”
Generally speaking, the German nationalists had been more in-
spired by British history than by English literature. “The cousin
beyond the Sea” was always their most admired and the most
envied model as a conqueror of the world. The Boer War, the
belated flower of British imperialism, was condemned by the Ger-
man Liberals as a misuse of strength against a small nation. Not
so by the Pangermanists. Their only thought was: “Why not
we?”
Cecil Rhodes and Dr. Jameson stood high in their esteem. The
virility of the poems of Rudyard Kipling had been echoed not only
by the German nationalists but almost by all of German youth.
There was the prototype of the “Herrenmensch,” the Master
Man,
and again the question arose: “Why not we, the superior race?
Why not we, the Germans?”
NAZISM: ITS SPIRITUAL ROOTS 781
the rise and fall of empires is the real meaning of history and
if it was also true that the Germans were the superior race as had —
been contended by the Frenchman Gobineau and confirmed by the
Englishman Chamberlain — ^the Third Reich, the world wide Ger-
man empire, could not be far away. No wonder that Chamber-
lain’s standard work ‘‘Die Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts,”
“The Foundations of the 19th Century,” became the Bible of the
Pangermanists who were, of course, a small sect at that time
(about 1900) but are now recognized as the spiritual ancestors of
the Nazis.
The great success of the “Grundlagen” was caused not by its
scientific value but by the political opportunity it offered. Cham-
berlain hy no means original in his hostility against the French
is
drew the portrait of a modern tyrant who by the most refined sys-
tem of cruelty, combined with ruse and hypocrisy, gains the dom-
ination of the world. Four years later a German writer Hermann
Goedsche, with the nom de plume “Sir John Ratcliffe, the Yoim-
ger,” wrote a crude novel, entitled Biarritz. It was a mysterious
story about twelve Rabbis meeting in secret session in the famous
old Jewish cemetery in Prague. From both these writings an
agent of the “Ochrana,” the Czarist secret police, named Ratch-
kovsky, made a concoction which, under the title The Protocols of
the Wise Men of Zion, won fame as the most fateful falsification
of all times. Joly in his witty phamphlet attributed to Napoleon-
Machiavelli outrageous remarks against morality and humanity.
784 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
Ratchkoivsky, in his falsification, put the same remarks into the
mouths of Jewish conspirators of his own or Goedsche’s invention.
Thus the counterrevolutionary propaganda of the “Ochrana” tried
to turn aside the wrath of the Russian people from the Czarist
government to the Jews.
morality.”
It may be doubtful whether the immediate demoralizing effect
of that devaluation of all moral values was as great as was pro-
phesied by many of Nietzsche’s adversaries. His own life was
unimpeachable if we can trust his biographers. It is not a new
experience that many teachers of high moral principles do not
live up to their own teaching. Why should the opposite not also
be true?
The answer to the question whether Nietzsche was a forerunner
of Nazism cannot be simply Yes or No. What he did in order to
destroy the belief in absolute moral values undoubtedly was pre-
paratory work. On the other hand, his passionate contempt of
race theories, antisemitism, militarism and any kind of mob in-
stinct make it sure that, if he had lived to see the Third Reich,
he would rather have been an inmate of Dachau than a man on
the top.
The same cannot be said of some inferior spirits like Otto
Ammon (1842-1916) and Alexander Tille (1866-1912). The
first one made a rather amateurish attempt to apply Darwin’s the-
ory to the human society. In his book, Die Gesellschaftsordung
und ihre natuerlichen Grundlagen. “Social order and its natural
foundations” he argued that the “higher-ups,” by being what
they were, had proved their superior abilities and therefore were
entitled to govern. They are the “social aristocrats” and it is
trial worker, in his meaning, is a man who \vas not able to ascend
higher grades of social life, and he has to behave and to be
treated accordingly. Tille, who had studied in England, was the
first to translate the works of Nietzsche into English. On the other
hand he painted in his writings the English imperialism in bright
colors, as a brilliant example for the Germans. In his private life
ferent classes. For them moral codes were hardly more than con-
788 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
ventional fashions. On the other hand, there was another faction
which tried to reconcile Marx with Kant. “Act so, that you, as
well in your own person as in the person of every other, look on
man as end and never simply, as a means.” In this fundamental
sentence of Kantian ethics they recognized also the ethical base
of socialism. Against the supposed amoralism of Karl Marx they
referred to his own life, which was the life of a Saint in the service
of the humble and the distressed, and to his flamboyant accusa-
tion of all kinds of oppression and exploitation.
Karl Kautsky (1854-1938), entangled in a hard struggle with
the Neo-Kantians, wrote in his book Ethik und materialistische
Geschichtsauffassung (Ethics and the materialistic conception of
history). “It was the materialistic conception of history which
has first completely deposed the moral ideal as the directing fac-
tor of social evolution.” Nevertheless, he was forced to confess:
“The ‘moral ideal’ has itsEven the Social Democracy
function.
as an organization of the proletariat cannot do without the moral
ideal, the moral indignation against exploitation and class rule.”
the gap between the Second and the Third Reich, the great Ger-
man Reich of the future.
Hans Schwarz, a close friend of Moeller who wrote the intro-
duction to the 3rd edition of Das Dritte Reich, after the author’s
death, said : “He found men when they were searching for a new
creed.” This is exactly what he did.
Like all the other apostles of nationalism or racism, Moeller
was an ardent opponent of liberalism. “The conservatives and the
revolutionaries,” he wrote, “have both the same enemies, the
liberals. . . . Liberalism has undermined civilization, has de-
stroyed religions, has ruined nations. Primitive peoples know
no liberalism.”
Moeller van den Bruck did not join the national socialist move-
ment which was at the end of his life just beginning. The Juni-
Klub, founded by him and his friends in 1919 was a rather
aristocratic society which had its continuation in the “Herren-
klub,” the “Gentlemen’s Club” whose president, Heinrich von
Gleichen, was an intimate friend of Moeller. Later on some mem-
bers of the Herrenklub, like von Papen, helped the Nazis to
power whilst others were murdered in the blood purge of 1934
or died on the gallows of Himmler in 1944.
Long before this happened, Moeller committed suicide in 1925.
The Nazis inherited one of Uieir most powerful slogans from him,
the mystical fascinating slogan of the “Third Reich.” It came
just in time to be incorporated into the compilation of Alfred
Rosenberg.
Speaking of Alfred Rosenberg, the high Priest of the Nazi
creed, after his ignominous end this writer cannot conceal his per-
sonal feelings. They are, sincerely spoken; feelings of pity rather
—
out mentioning it he remarks: “A people of brothers is an utopia
and not even a nice one. Limitless brotherhood means the ignor-
ing of all differences of values.”
There is no difficulty in proving the superiority of the Nordic
race: “The two million dead of the (first) World War prove that
in the hearts of the most simple peasants and the most modest
workers the ancient myth creating power of the Nordic race is
still alive.” There one could object that other nations also had
casualties, that the Nordic people of Denmark, Norway and
Sweden did not fight at all, while thousands upon thousands of
German Jews died in action. One could object that, on the other
hand, Rosenberg himself was then a Russian student who never
tried to die for Germany — but objections of this kind would evoke
nothing else but anger and contempt of the self-conscious author.
Rosenberg is weary with arguing, disgusted with reason and
facts. “The new myth and the force,” he exclaims, “creating new
types which now are striving for expression, are not to be re-
futed at all. They will pave their way. They will create facts.”
Hitler only the last two kinds of elite exist, for the first one is an
expression of the detested democracy.
Democracy was the offspring of the revolutions of 1776, 1789,
1848 and 1918. To destroy it was the logical aim of the counter-
revolution of 1933. “Destruction of the dishonest democracy”
was also the slogan of the dull Rosenberg, but the clever Goebbels
added shrewdly: “by the means of democracy.” Rightly the Nazis
could also say: “We want to destroy the fruits of Revolution hy
revolutionary means.” And they did it. This brings us to the in-
its value varied from place to place and from time to time. About
the middle classes. Gregor Strasser, once the most powerful leader
of the Party next to Adolf Hitler, but murdered in the purge of
1934, called it in a famous Reichstag speech “die antikapitalis-
tische Sehnsucht,” “the anti-capitalistic longing.” This feeling
got its expression in some of the 25 Points, concerning economic
problems. Point 11 asks for the abolition of “unearned incomes,”
Point 16 for the creation of “a sound middle class,” Point 13 for
the “nationalization of the trusts.” Point 18 demands the death
penalty for “profiteers.” None of these demands were realized
when the Nazis had the power to do it except perhaps the last one.
For during the war many poor devils who had slaughtered cattle
was a game of pitch and loss with no other alternative than com-
plete victory or loss of everything; a mine, as Clausewitz stated
rightly, which explodes into the direction, given to it by prepar-
atory arrangements. It was according to the teachings of Luden-
dorff that World War II was waged and lost.
“Close spiritual unity of the people,” the general wrote, “is the
foundation of the total war. . . . International powers like Jews
and Rome are destructive elements.” He found the ideal of na-
tional unity in Japan and the Shinto creed. “The Christian peo-
ples,” he complained, “are no more so fortunate to have a creed
fitting to their race.” Rightly he found out that true Christians
are as unfit for total war as the Jews. However, his attempt to
803
xxn.
Panslavism
Editorial Note
807
—
XXII
PANSLAVISM
By
Waclaw Lednicki
1. The Slavophils
unable to find its center of gravity until the City of the Tsar (Con-
stantinople is called in Russian Tsargrad), in which every Rus-
sian peasant sees the true focus of his religion and nation, be-
comes the residence of the Russian emperor. The intrigues by
. . .
808
—
PANSLAVISM 809
PANSLAVISM 811
Ivan III was not very much interested in the European title of
king, which did not mean very much to him. Moscow was so far
away from the habits, manners, and international hierarchy of
Europe that European distinctions and collaboration with Europe
could not awake real interest in the exotic Muscovite state. On the
other hand, Sophia Paleologus was considered by the Pope as a
zealous Catholic; Ivan III needed a pure Orthodox fiancee. This
last thing, however, was settled, and in 1472 Sophia Paleologus,
from one special point of view, from the very one which caused
great discomfort in Cracow. Ivan III was supposed to become
king or even emperor of the whole Russian nation ( in tota Ruthen-
ica natione). As I have said, Ivan 111 was not interested in the
title, as he was not even very anxious to buy from the direct -heir
of the Byzantine throne the rights to the throne, and Andrew Paleo-
logus had" to sell them elsewhere. But the formula in tota Ruthen-
The first one was connected with the fact that some of the lands
which belonged King and Grand Duke of Lithuania
to the Polish
(in one person, as the King of Poland was at the same time the
Grand Duke of Lithuania from the time of the union between
Poland and Lithuania) represented ancient votchinas, appanages,
of the Rurikoviches, that is, of the ancestors of Ivan III.
rate they had succeeded earlier from the Tartars all the
in seizing
Kievan Rus, with Kiev and all lands which now are known as
White Ruthenia; so that Smolensk, Polock, Witebsk, Minsk, Mohi-
lev, and the whole modern Ukraine found themselves within the
is possible that the first two elements of this system may raise no
doubts, the third appears less clear. But for Uvarov and his fol-
lowers it was not The concrete significance of the word “na-
so.
*Cf. W. Lednicki, Life and Culture of Poland, New York, 1944, p. 41.
PANSLAVISM 819
the same historical source, must have the same historical fate.”
When the Chaadaev scandal exploded. Count Benckendorff, head
of the Russian police and the closest collaborator of Nicholas I,
figurer”’’
The establishment of this ideology was not confined merely to
official interviews, proclamations, and manifestos. The govern-
ment had in its hands powerful means with which to imprison the
thought of the country within its official ideology. The most effi-
one recalls perhaps that the writer compares that troika to a Rus-
sia “flying onwards like a spirited troika that nothing can over-
take.” “The road is smoking under thee,” writes Gogol. “The
bridges rumble, everything falls back and is left behind. . . .
with religious humility and with noble pride that your existence
is concentrated in your holy master. Without him you are only
a line of zeros — with that monarchical ‘one’ these zeros make a
billion.”®
s Lemke, Nikolaevskie Zhandamy, quoted by Jan Kuchatzewaki, Old Budego Citratu
do Czerwonego, vol. I, Warsaw, 1923, pp. 301-302.
Ii2 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
What is particularly striking is the arrogance of this constant
comparison of Muscovite Russia with not only Europeanized
Russia, but the whole of Europe. The later Panslavists such as
Tyutchev and Dostoevsky wiU continue to drive in a Gogolian
troika. Gogol himself knew Europe and was, I think, very fond
of it — especially of Italy. In his Dead Souls he showed even a
kind of Ukrainian hatred for Muscovite life; yet in his lyrical
French are imbued only with their vain glory, the Germans were
called to realize an integral humanity.”®
The dizzying speech of Fichte in which he launched the meta-
physics ofGermanism and the identity of Germanism and uni-
versalist messianism became, of course, a source of particularly
appealing inspiration for the Slavophils. But here again some
reservations should be made. Fichte’s speech, absurd as it was,
—
was a reaction against Jena the defeated nation was looking for
an ideological compensation. The Slavophils did not need any
compensation, but they very quickly used the whole German arma-
ment of arguments in their fight against Western Europe and for
holy Russia. German philosophical imperialism was directed pri-
ions, by similar ideas, and by the same need or desire for com-
mon happiness.” (Constantine Aksakov). Another trait was the
complete reduction of the role of the individual which appears
in their conception of the Russian land community. The agricul-
tural character of the Russian civilization brought the Russian
people to an humble subordination, which, by the way, the Slavo-
phils praised enormously. That choral, primitive, and purely
Christian character of the old Russian civilizationwas what they
wanted to preserve. Connected with was the argument of
this
I should like to stress the fact that we must have in mind several
important historical dates around which the Panslavistic discus-
sion became especially animated. These historical events and
dates are: first of all, the Polish Insurrection of 1830-31, the
Cracow Insurrection of 1846, the Slavic Congress in Prague in
828 European ideologies
1848, the Crimean War of 1854-56, the Polish Insurrection of
1863, the Slavic Congress in Moscow in 1867, the time of the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, the period preceding the World
War of 1914-18 with the so-called Neoslavism and finally the re-
cent movements organized by Russia in Moscow and in this coun-
try among the American Slavic population and the Congress or-
ganized recently, also by Russia, in Belgrade.
could other Slavs who were outside of Russia trust all the great
promises given to them by the Russian Slavophils and later Pan-
PAflsLAVlsM 8^4
I cannot enter into details of Pushkin’s role in this case. I have devoted a
special book to it.— C(. Pouchkine et [a Pologne, Paris, 1928.
830 European ideologies
poet over the heads of Russian politicians, writers, and poets.
From this point of view it would be difilcult to evaluate the enor-
mity of the moral disaster achieved by Pushkin. And, as I men-
tioned before, the fact that it was just the great European Rus-
sian who assumed the responsibility for this makes it particularly
painful. One has the right to say that had Pushkin taken a differ-
ent attitude, the fate of Russian-Polish relations and therefore
partly of Russian-European relations could have been different.
It is possible, however, that my point of view is too idealistic and
that I evaluate too highly the importance of poetical texts in the
life of nations; nevertheless I am not at all certain that I am wrong.
When examining the works of the Russian Slavophils and Pan-
slavists — the Aksakovs, Khomyakov, Samarin, Pogodin, Leont’ev,
Katkov, Danilevsky, Dostoevsky, and even Vladimir Solov’ev
(whose opinions were in many respects opposite to those of the
Slavophils and especially the Panslavists), whose views are so
actual for our own day, one sees how completely Pushkin’s poems
were in accord with the basic tendencies of Russian nationalistic
historical and political thought, and particularly with its anti-
The case of Strakhov, however, was less simplv in this circumstance. Cf. my
article “Russian Polish Cultural Relations,” New Europe, New York, 1944.
832 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
th9 liberation and regeneration which the Muscovite Slavophils
were trying to secure to the enslaved Polish nation. The whole
armament of arguments and weapons may be found in the
their
writings of Aksakov, Pogodin, Samarin, Leskov, Danilevsky, and
Dostoevsky. In the light of the present Slav movements organ-
ized by Soviet Russia and in the light of the present extermina-
tion of the Polish intelligentsia imder Russia’s “liberating pro-
tection” one may see that the most audacious dreams of the Slav-
ophils and Panslavists of the nineteenth century are now being
realized. The Russian autocracy was not able to use all means of
extermination against the Polish spiritual culture because some
of the elements of it were attached to a social regime which the
followers to the belief that the Russian past, the Russian nation,
and Russian Orthodoxy represented the incarnation of that
law of universal improvement and of that metaphysical truth.
These beliefs led them to their violent hatred for Peter the Great
(the brother of Ivan Kireevsky, Peter Kireevsky, hated Peter the
Great to such a degree that he was deeply ashamed of the fact that
he himself bore the same name) and for Western Europe, and
led them to the most simplified and crude philosophical inter-
pretation of the historical development of Europe, which they
based, by the way, again on European conceptions —on Guizot’s
triad: Roman heritage, Catholicism, and conquest. A one-sided ra-
see later to what ultimate aberrations these doctrines led, for in-
stance in the case of Leont’ev, who praised the “ignorance of the
63d European ideologies
Russian people” as a guarantee against the dangers of European
rationalism.
of the faithful. His aim was not only the Catholic Church but
also the Uniate Church. Poles, White Ruthenians, and Ukrain-
ians were to become, as Russian subjects, members of the domin-,
ant church of the Russian state. In his cautiously elaborated stra-
tegy not a single weapon has been forgotten: the building of Or-
thodox churches, the substitution of Orthodox crosses in the coun-
tryside for the Cahotlic ones, the institution of the Greek calendar,
the organization of a press of Orthodox propaganda for the peo-
ple, the appointment of only Orthodox directors and inspectors
in the schools, etc. The Catholic priesthood must be weakened by
the favoring of sectarianism and material spoliation. “It is difii-
cult,” he say.s, “to secularize one monastery; but the annihilation
of 194 monasteries and the refusal of any noviciates in order to
create from the unused wealth larger funds for the clergy will
find many advocates among the clergy themselves. In general,
the state should not hinder but help the clergy to surely and freely
ruin and prostitute itself.””
This was, in broad lines, the program for eradication of all
Polish ties with the West. One is justified in asking if this sys-
tem which was adopted by the Russian government in Poland
was not very close to the main ideas of the Slavophils and Pan-
slavists as far as the problem of Russian-Polish relations is con-
cerned. As was mentioned before, at the time when Cherkassky and
Samarin were active in Poland Slavophilism degenerated into Pan-
russianism. Parallel to this there developed, especially during
the time of the Slavic Congress in Moscow in 3867, Panslavic
conceptions of the Slavs united under Russian leadership. The
most complete and consistently developed program for the sub-
Kuchaizewski, op cit., vol. 11, pp. 281-297.
838 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
jugation of Slavs to Russia was formulated in 1867 by the Slovak,
Ludevit Stur, in his hook Slavdom and the World of the Future.
His hook, which was republished in 1909 by such modem Rus-
sian scholars in Slavic as Lamansky, Grot and Florinsky, who,
primarily because of their Slavophil and Panslavist tendencies,
considered Stur a “genius of his nation,” represents indeed a
quite exceptional tribute to the cultural, moral, and political forces
of the Russian empire. Stur had, however, predecessors not only
in theabove mentioned Slavophils but chiefly in the person of the
famous Russian historian, politician, and journalist M. Pogodin,
who himself represents a bridge between Slavophilism, Panrus-
sianism, and Panslavism. I shall not enter into an analysis of all
the voluminous works of Pogodin; sufiicient will be his memoran-
dum written in 1838, in which we And items already known to us
from Nadezhdin and Gogol and which will reappear in almost
similar phrasing in Stur’s apology of Russia.
Pogodin writes: “Russia! What a wonderful phenomenon on
the world- arena. . . . Russia is a population of sixty million peo-
ple whom it was possible to count in addition to those of whom
there is yet no account, a population which increases by a mil-
lion every year and will soon reach a hundred million. . . . And
let us add thirty millions of our brothers and first cousins, the
Slavs scattered throughout all Europe from Constantinople to
Venice and from Morea to the Baltic and the North Sea, the Slavs
in whom same blood as our own, who speak the same
flows the
language and therefore, by the laws of nature are sympathetic
with us, who in spite of geographic and political separation, form
one moral unity with us, by origin and by language! Let us
subtract this amount from neighboring Austria and Turkey, and
later from the whole of Europe, and let us add it to ourselves.
What will remain with them, and how much shall we represent?
One’s thought and breath are stopped! A ninth part of the en-
tire inhabited earth, and almost a ninth part of mankind! Half
ganize any federation. They are weak, they are simply frag-
ments of one nation, and because of that “the concept of federa-
tive states has no sense.”*®
The conclusion is obvious: “There remains a third road, the only
one which is sure and has a future — the union of all Slavs with
Russia.”*’ Then come all kinds of apologetic epithets, compari-
sons, in which Russia appears as a lighthouse in the dark night,
assertions that the Slavs must not start their new life with the de-
clining West but with rising Russia. “Russia ... is the mother
and the leader of all our national family.” He is aware, how-
ever, of some difficulties as far as the attitude of other Slavs to-
ward Russia is concerned. But he solves them easily according to
his assertion that the only Slavs who hate Russia are Poles. By
their whole civilization they are opposed to Russia. Poles did not
want, as did the Russians, to subordinate themselves to one mon-
archical will. They did not know how to organize their life, and
they had been defeated by Russia, to the great and lasting benefit
of all of the Slavs. Had Poland resisted, Russia would have been
far away from Europe and would not be able to help the Slavs;
and of course the Poles never had any qualifications for leadership
among the Slavs.
With the Czechs the situation is less complicated: “In their
present prosaic conditions they only weakly attract other Slavs.
Although literature is diligently developed, in higher learning,
in philosophy and history, nothing outstanding appears, with the
exception of Palacky’s History of Bohemia. And in arts and poetry
the Czechs do not possess, with the exception of Macha, a single
2" Ibid., p. 129.
Ibid., p. 141.
PANSLAVISM 841
pp. 146-150.
28 Ibid., pp. 150-152.
842 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
The final conclusion is that the “immense Russian power pushes
ahead, it cannot be quieted, it constantly must look to new arenas
for its activity. The Slavic conscience strongly awakens in Rus-
sia .. . and it can not longer allow its relative tribes to remain in
4. Danilevsky (1822-1885)
«/6W., p. 158.
PANSLAVISM 843
is, for the freedom and independence of the Slavs, for the pos-
session of Tsargrad — for everything which in the opinion of Eu-
rope represents an object of illegitimate Russian ambition and
which in the opinion of every Russian worthy of that name rep-
resents the inevitable demand of Russia’s historical mission.”®^
Of course, on his road, Danilevsky fatally met Poland. His
fight in this case was very simple. He liquidated Poland with the
help of all kinds of historical accusations and political insinua-
tions. In the same way he destroyed every spiritual cultural tie
between Russia and Europe. His formula was not at all com-
plicated, and one cannot really deny that this formula is the key
to Stalin’s present policy. When referring to the theory of poli-
tical balance he says: “It is not at all difficult to be convinced that
between Europe and Russia in this as well as in other respects there
cit., p. 437.
Op. cit., p. 474.
28 Op. cit., p. 486.
PANSLAVISM 845
divided into two parties — one, the disturbant with those who
volens nolens are on his side, and the victims of the disturbants
who seek to restore the balance. Both parties naturally try to
bring to their side the only one strong neighbor who is, by the
nature of things (whatever, by the way, might be the forms, words,
and appellations applied), outside of their family, outside their
system. Therefore both parties flatter Russia. One seeks help
from her for the conservation of the obtained predominance; the
other one for liberation from the power, influence, and danger
coming from the side of the disturbant. Russia may choose of
her own will. On the contrary, during the existence of balance
the political activity of Europe is directed outside, and its hos-
tility against Russia is given free march: here, instead of two
parties one after the other flattering Russia, Europe flows into
one entity openly or secretly hostile to Russia. We must there-
fore abandon the thought of any solidarity with European in-
terests,of any ties with one or the other political combination of
European powers, and first of all acquire a complete freedom of
action, complete possibility to unite with every European state,
—
on only one condition that such an alliance should be advan-
tageous for us without any consideration as to what kind of poli-
tical principle is represented at a given time by this or that
state.”^
It would not be arbitrary to assert that if for the contemporaries
of Danilevsky his book was a “catechism” or codex of “Slavo-
philism” (words of N. N. Strakhov), for us it might be considered
the bible of Stalin’s present foreign policy. In the light of Rus-
sia’s present play with England, America, and France, not to
mention Germany and China, the guiding ideas of Danilevsky be-
come particularly significant.
From the historical and moral point of view this book cannot
resist any critique. Danilevsky followed the Slavophils in their
fanatic admiration for the Russia of the Muscovite period. Even
from the point of view of Russian imperialism that Slavophil pre-
Op. cU., pp. 488-89.
84i6 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
dilection for the Ivans of Moscow and hatred for Peter the Great
were not justifiable. As far as the territorial expansion of Rtissia
is concerned, the Russia of the Petershurgian period did not ac«
quire or “liberate” fewer nations and lands than the tsars of
Moscow.*®
Besides, for every unprejudiced historian one thing is quite
clear —^that the universal achievements of Russia in the field of
spiritual culture were genuinely connected with her collaboration
with Western Europe. The Russian national genius was silent or
inarticulate fur centuries, and only when the magic wand of the
West touched the Russian soul did the voice of Awakum become
the melody of Pushkin’s poetry. How can we imagine all the
great accomplishments of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Tschai-
kowsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov — words
in other Russian
the cul-
ture of the nineteenth century —without Europe and her inspira-
tion? This point of view has been strongly stressed on many oc-
casions by Russians themselves, first of aU by Vladimir Solov’ev.
From the moral point of view the ideology of Danilevsky is es-
PANSLAVISM 847
far from the first generation of the Muscovite Slavophils who were
trying to marry their Russian nationalism and Slavophilism with
uni versal humanitarianism. They had a mystic idea of the na-
tion and a respect for it as for a person, a religious entity. (True
enough only for the Russian nation.) Danilevsky lost all these
For Leont’ev all means are good as “politics are not ethics.” He
calls for courage, for people who will not fear the words “reac-
tion” and “reactionary,” who will understand “that nothing can
be achieved without violence” and that in order to stop the “de-
5. Tyutchev (1803-1873)
Europe, married to two foreign women who did not know Russian,
a cosmopolitan in his private life, ‘^entertaining German barons,
poets, and diplomats,” always speaking French*® —Tyutchev be-
came not only in his political treaties, articles, and diplomatic
reports but also in his poetry the most violent advocate of Slavo-
philand Panslavistic ideas and of Russian anti-Europeanism.
There were, of course, slight distinctions between him and the
Muscovite Slavophils. The kind of patriarchial democratism
which characterized th^m, their adulation of the Russian peas-
ant, their theory about the Russian village community —for all
these things Tyutchev cared very little. His primary interests were
connected with foreign affairs. He was the “minister of foreign
problem was al-
affairs” of the Slavophils. Therefore the Slavic
ways important to him. He wrote and published many political
poems addressed to the Slavs and to the Czechs and poems con-
nected with the Polish problem, — ^but again in a very peculiar
way. When
Murav’ev the “hangman” plunged the Polish Insur-
rection of1863 into massacres and blood, Tyutchev addressed to
him a homage of greatest thankfulness and admiration. And when
the grandson of Suvorov, the famous hero of the Prague massacre
in Warsaw in 1794, appeared decent enough to refuse participa-
tion in a collective address to Murav’ev, Tyutchev launched a mis-
chievous and sarcastic epigram in which he made fun of Suvorov’s
misplaced humanitarianism. Besides, he, in 1866 wrote a poem
glorifying Murav’ev’s memory. True enough that in 1831 his
attitudehad been a little different. He wrote at that time a poem
by which Poles have very often been lulled and which was usually
quoted as a Russian pro-Polish text. First of all there is, I think,
a kind of moral insanity in Ip-inging the name of Tyutchev as a
symbol of Russian-Polish fraternity; the name of the poet who in
the most cynical way sang the glory of Murav’ev! Besides, even
so Lezhnev, ibid., p. 20.
PANSLAVISM 851
the world from the catastrophe. We see here the presence of his
former altruistic conceptions — ^Europe is in a state of ideological
disaster, the world is in danger — the “Russian rock” of legitim-
ism will save it! However, this was not quite so. Russia’s tragic
days during the Crimean campaign brought our political Tartuffe
to some different views. He consoled himself by the following
significant consideration: “In this ultimate fight we should perish
if the West were one, but it is two: the red one and the one which
must be absorbed by it. We have been opposing it for forty years,
and now here we are on the border of the precipice. And now
the red one in its turn will save us.”^^ This is the best revelation
of Tyutchev’s universal historiosophic conceptions.
Merezhkovsky once justly observed that “one” of the traits of
Russian Slavophilism was its “softbodiness,” bonelessness and
inability, lack of desire to carry its thought to the end. And Tyut-
chev “puts bones into the body and dots the i’s; his logic is merci-
less.” . . . “Tyutchev is clever, and his politics are not stupid; but
as far as his conscience is concerned it enters least of all with his
politics.”^ -Not only hypocrisy but really a complete lack of
human loyalty characterized him. During the whole of the life
of Nicholas I this “bishop of Russian imperialism” did nothing
but spread incense around Nicholas. But as soon as the latter
died, after the Crimean War, Tyutchev shouted: “Thou wert not
** Pigarev, op. cit., p. 177.
Lezhnev, op. cit., p. 13.
PANSLAVISM 855
6. Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
7. Bakunin (1814-1876)
Grossman, p. 213.
860 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
sels. Lelewel “told him about the primitive democratic Polish
municipality, about the agrarian Slavic collectivity, about broth-
by the class structure
erly institutions and customs distorted later
and the enslavement of people which came from the West. At
that time he conceived a new goal for himself which was “a Rus-
sian revolution and a republican federation of all Slavic lands,
and the establishment of one indivisible Slavic republic, federa-
tive only as regards administration, and politically centralized.”®'
At that time, under the influence of western European populism
and socialism on one side and; on the other, of his intimate con-
tacts with the Polish emigration in Paris, Bakunin started to crys-
tallize his own Russian populist and revolutionary ideas. The first
main enemies of the Slavic race — tore herself away from Slav-
“‘J. Kucharasewski, op. cit., vol. 11. pp. 161-162; rf. also V. Holonsky, M. A
Bakunin, vol. 1, Gos. Izd., 1925, pp. 155 156.
panslavism 861
These articles and his manifesto passed without any great effect.
His striking idea of dictatorship representing a kind of anarchical
despotism was an idea which obsessed him and which reappeared
in different forms on many occasions during his life. He even
admitted that a Russian tsar, Nicholas I or Alexander II, or a gen-
eral, such as Murav’ev-Armursky or Nicholas Ignat’ev, might be
a beneficent dictator over the Slavs. The next most important mani-
festation of Bakunin’s Panslavism took place after his Siberian
exile, when in 1862 he published his revolutionary Manifesto to
Russian, Polish, and all Slavic friends. As a matter of fact,
•’*2
Polonsky, op. cU., pp. 221-227.
862 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
he returned in this manifesto to his former ideas —of an agrarian
revolution, of the abolishment of bureaucracy and the privileged
classes and a federation of Slavic peoples. Characteristically
the ark, which would save from this deluge a creative idea for
mankind, he puts only the Russian village community with its
sideration.”®*
8. Herzen (1812-1870)
Herzen also has some ties with Dostoevsky and these ties are to
he found in his critique of the West and in his enthusiasm for the
Russian village community which, as we know, was. one of the
chief objects of admiration of the Muscovite Slavophils though
they first heard of it from the German Haxthausen who in 1845
published his work on his travels in Russia. Herzen’s cult of the
Russian peasant, his populism, made of him a precursor of narod-
nichestvo.
That evolution was not quite simple —Herzen, before his trip
to Europe and stay there, was one of the most enthusiastic Rus-
sian Westerners, and he very often opposed the Muscovite Slavo-
phils. His stay in Europe changed his opinions, and there he be-
came one of the most violent fighters against I’esprit bourgeois of
the Western civilization. The conception of the dying Western
civilizationbecame a kind of obsession with him and against these
constantly drawn pictures of the chaos, agony, and disease of
Europe suddenly arose in the mind of this former Westerner his
Russian and even Slavophil messianism. To Chaadaev’s formula
that the past of Russia is empty, the present unbearable, and that
she has no future, Herzen replied that the “past of the Russian
PANSLAVISM '
865
the distant aroma of the lemon groves, and the smoky buildings
in G>logne. . . . We love the body, the taste and the color of it, and
its oppressive deadly odor. ... Is it our fault if your skeleton
cracks in our heavy, soft paws?”
sians and the Serbian intelligentsia a class which did not rep-
resent the real feelings of the people, and facts such as the Rus-
sian correspondents calling Serbs “Russians of Belgrade gubernia*’
famous letter of Khomyakov to
clarified the situation so that the
in this field of, besides the Czechs, Polish, Russian, and Serbian
Details connected with neo-Slavi»m, with events preceding the First World War
the policy of Izvolsky, the activities of Count Bobrinskoy on one hand—
and on the
other, activities of people such as Dmowski among the Poles the attitude
of the
Ukrainians, and the situation in the Balkans preceding the War of 1914 may be
found in Dr. Alfred Fischel’s Der Panslavitmus bis sum Weltkrieg, Berlin, 1919.
Kuchatzewski, op. cU., vol. II, Warsaw, 1925, p. 303.
PANSLAVISM 871
sympathy for the Russian nation’s “yearning for liberty and free-
dom, and waiting for a favorable moment to abolish serfdom”
“frankly encouraged” Russians “to rouse their knightly spirit.”
The manifesto stressed that the Polish country “wishes for nothing
more than your progress and the freedom of the Russian nation.”
^ This information may be found in the studies on Slavic Philology of Jagic,
Alexander Bruckner, Frantsev, Mazon, Machal, Lehr-Splaw inski, W. Lednicki, A. P.
Coleman, in different reviews such as Archiv fur slawische Pkilologie, Revue des
Etudes Slaves, Le Monde Slave, Suiiat SlowUmski, Przeglad Slowianski, Slavia,
Slawische Rundschau, The Slavonic and East European Review, and The American
Slavic and East European Review.
872 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
However, the really first classical manifestation of Slavophil-
ism in Poland, a manifestation which, by the way, preceded the
Muscovite Slavophil school, is to be found in Stanislaw Staszic’s
Thoughts on the Politiccd Equilibrium of Europe, written in 1815.
It is a work in which Staszic dealt with the problem of the future
the Greek church. Under that influence the Eastern Slavs pre-
served the habits and rites that had originated in the pagan period.
The conclusion was immediate and plain: it was Russia alone
that had kept the ancient tribal traditions.
After the events of 1830 and 1846 Polish political thought re-
verted to principles which approached the systems of Staszic
and Jaroszewicz, but of course very often for quite different mo-
tives. Limitation of space does not allow me to go into detail nor
to quote the opinions of numerous writers who tried to elaborate
Slavophil or Panslavic systems. I shall confine myself to only
certain ones. Among them. Count Adam Gurowski deserves at-
tention. For the sake of gain he became an apostate from his na-
tion, and disclaiming his early activity (he took part in the Insur-
rection of 1831 and was one of the founders of the Polish Demo-
cratic Society in Paris), he accepted the amnesty, annoyed Pas-
kevich, the Viceroy of Nicholas I in Poland at that time, by apply-
ing for remunerative posts, and wangled money from his acquaint-
ances. Finally, during his stay abroad, in 1841-1848, he pub-
lished a number of dissertations. Inspired by hatred of the Ger-
mans, he defended Panslavism and Panrussianism and tried to
prove that the former was a historical necessity and that the Rus-
sian conquests aimed only at establishing the total independence
874 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
of the Slavs from foreign influence. The imperialistic Russian
the crisis. Then the Tsar will come to Poland, take the title of
the Tsar of the Slavs and proclaim the union of these nations.
The enthusiasm of the Polish army and of the Polish nation will
have no limits. . . . You may believe me that on the day when
Tsar Nicholas launches his Cossacks from Cracow at a gallop with
the knut in one hand and a bag of rubles in the other, the Cos-
sacks will stop only on the other border of the Austrian empire:
nothing will resist him on the road. This revolution will fall
. . .
w. II and III).
and European crises. But they had something more in them than
that, particularly the system of Hoene-Wrohski. At the bottom
there was an exaggerated desire for self-sacrifice, a profound love
for the misty and chimerical ideas of a universal happiness to
which the Slavs were destined to lead mankind, and in particular,
the western communities. In the cause of those ideals Poland was
to be the victim of a fantastic self-immolation. There we see a sig-
period, expressed in the shape of the two Cods, the “black” and
the “white” ; their dualism was reflected in the splitting up of the
Slavic language into Russian and Polish “dialects.*’ This dualism
was strengthened by the alien influences which formed the Slavic
states. With regard to the different structural characteristics of the
states of the Lechs (Poles) and the Norsemen from their early ex-
istence, Mickiewicz sketched the history of the struggle between
these two nations for the possession of the northern lands. Catholi-
cism and Orthodoxy only deepened the already existing cleavage.
The Poland from Moscow had been in dispute
territory separating
between them ever since Ivan III. Religion was an instrument, an
obstacle, a pretext, but it never was the real basis of the dispute.
However, the schism which separated the Greek and ihe Roman
churches had intensified the earlier diversions in the spiritual
that the individual conscience must be the highest form in the na-
tional life, were based upon the Christian principle of belief in
'''*
I am following here, in general, “Poland and the Slavophil Idea.” Cf. Z. Klarner,
SlowUaiofiUtwo u Literaturze Polskiej lot, 1800-1848, Warsaw, 1926, pp. 175-177.
EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
the close communion of man with Cod. Hence, whereas Polish
political thought is entirely spiritualized, the Mongol principle
of autocracy has triumphed in Russia; it has created the immense
material power which, if this principle were to prevail, would
threaten the world with universal serfdom. In other words Mickie-
wicz was a pessimist as far as Slavophilism is concerned ; the Russo-
Polish antagonism broke the unity of the Slavic world. He fore-
saw, nevertheless, a possible solution. Only by a change from
without in her religious mentality could Russia be transformed.
Mickiewicz believed in the coming of a new epoch of universal re-
ligious rebirth, which was to effect the reconciliation of the divided
Slavs. This hope seemed to him quite reasonable. The “hero-
ism of serfdom,” Russia’s heroic obedience, the intensity of her
religious life, allowed him to prophesy that the looked-for re-
ligious regeneration would include Russia.
Violently aggressi\e to Russia were some other Polish Slavo-
phile theorists, eliminating Russia from their systems either
because Russia embraced in the early days of her history the
pr'inciples of the Scandinavians and worshipped the
pt»litical
idity,” its “sense of art,” its “acute sensitiveness”; the human soul
in Byzantium became so mean that even Christianity became un-
able to breathe new life into it. The second parent of Russian
culture, the Mongol world of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane,
“found a sovereign power only in destruction”; had no idea of
it
separated Russia from Europe, by its soul kept her from de-
ceiving all the Slavs, by its spirit nullified the probability of a
victory over the human race.
Contemplating with horror a future in which Russia might win
the victory, Krasinski cast his speech into the form of a prophecy.
Thus in the memorandum to Napoleon III during the Crimean War
he said: “. . . In case of a pacific solution Russia will find for-
midable auxiliaries in the fire of anarchy which she will then
continue to animate everywhere, and in the very nature of things
created by nearsightedness, by wealth, by agitations of misery and
by that complete moral prostration about which I just spoke.
Therefore all possibility for the future will henceforth be granted
to this power. Gifted with an incomparable sagacity, as far as
destruction is concerned it will not let escape a single occasion to
turn to its profit all the hatreds and envies of our time. It will
know admirably well how to exploit on one side the hopes of the
legitimists and on the other the fury of demagogy. . . . Then will
—
come the day of the explosion then there will come another day
when Europe, covered with blood and ruins, will collapse under
the weight of a thousand crimes and a thousand disasters; then
the mistaken conservatives imagining that the Russian government
represents order, will indicate it as a liberator and at the same
moment the Socialists, recognizing in it their true master, will
greet it by the name of the supreme initiator. It will fool every-
one and everyone will fall at its feet.” In another passage speak-
ing about Russia Krasinski says: “Humiliated and unmasked, but
not weakened, she will henceforth try to make use of other weap-
ons and before renewing her unsuccessful attack against Constan-
tinople she will prepare more obscure and more efficient roads.
She will stretch out her hand to all secret societies, to all con-
spiracies, to all shadowy plots from one end of Europe to the
PANSLAVISM 883
other. She pay them with her gold and support them by her
will
critiques — in a word, she will put her
whole power at the serv-
ice of the social revolution with the aim of precipitating from the
throne the dynasties which recently disdained her alliance.””
There are indeed some striking passages in this prophetic mem-
orandum. “The whole role which is played by the demagogical
party in the breast of every European nation was accepted by
Russia long ago and in measure much more gigantic toward all
these nations taken together. She also announces an unknown
era; she also proclaims another God, another church, the coming
of a new society, religion as the slave of the temporal power, the
soul subordinate to the body, the destruction of every aristocracy,
the obliteration of the individual from the book of life, the realiza-
tion of absolute equality, it is true at the cost of the most ex-
ecrable of tyrannies, but unobtainable in a different manner here
below; finally, the idea of property erased from the organization
of labor —and as a crown for this system, the enjoyments of the
brute accorded as a unique consolation to mankind . . . Russia
... it is the arisen revolution, organized, disciplined, armed with
a million bayonets knocking at the doors of the world ! If one is
Krasinski was aware of the fact that the affinities he stressed be-
tween revolution and the Russia of Nicholas I, could appear para-
doxical to the people to whom he addressed his memoranda.
Therefore in his memorandum to Napoleon III he says that the
fact the Russian government had too solemnly proclaimed its prin-
ciples does not prevent it from following such a course of action.
He stressed that “the only principle of that government is to have
no principles at all, and that ever since a secret and profound affin-
ity has existed between the Russian Genius and the revolutionary
Genius.”™
Pisma Zygmunta Krasinsidego, Vol. VII, Krakow, 1912, pp. 316-317.
w/6a., pp. 317-318.
™Op. «>., p. 317.
884 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
In his opinion Russia had only one dream that of a univer- —
sal monarchy and nothing would ever oblige the government which
rules Russia to abandon “the monstrous idea of introducing it-
self in Europe through interior destruction, wrought hy parties
which would tear apart the civilized states, and of planting its vic-
torious eagles on the fragments of ruins or on heaps of mud ac-
her.” “Then with its Asiatic foot she will stamp upon Europe and
will give to the Europeans, tubercular, miserable, exhausted, lying
in smoking ruins and amidst puddles of blood, the Kriut to kiss.
Then Moscow, convinced that nothing more will resist her, that all
the prophesies of Peter the Great are realized, will start to rage but
so loathesomely and so inhumanely again that she will awake the
last despair in Europe.”^'
It is unfortunately impossible to follow Krasinski further be-
cause of lack of space. These examples are striking enough, but
actually one may read almost the same things in the articles of
Karl Marx published in New York at the time of the Crimean
War. Krasinski was an aristocrat, a conservative and a Catholic
— and I need not explain who Marx was. Krasinski was led by a
fear of revolution organized by Russia. Marx counted on rev-
olution to destroy all despotisms in Europe and first of all, Rus-
sian despotism. Who was right, in the long run, that is the ques-
ical were, of course, the years of the Polish Insurrections and be-
tween them, the years of the Crimean War.
slavism. There are here and there in his vacillating study some
very just remarks about, for instance, the paradoxical play of
geography and culture in the case of Poland: the anti-Slavic en-
thusiastic Polish Latinism flowering in a completely uncovered
and defenceless plain surrounded by the Germans and the Rus-
sians. This vision leads him sometimes to pessimism and he is
tage and does not bring you any honor. They fear Socialism
. . .
the state. The tsar is the only universal and real proprietor. . . .
tacked from another side. One may find in the voluminous book
of Karl Marx —The Eastern Question (London, 1897), containing
Not less convincing and even fascinating are the details con-
nected with the same Crimean War brought by the contemporary
Russian historian Tarle.*^
Marx saw the whole situation from a very lucid point of view.
He was trying to convince his American readers just as writers
in The New LeadcT are now trying to do. Marx asserted that those
of his readers who followed his correspondence from London
“will have learned before that the idea of Russian diplomatic
supremacy owes its efficiency to the imbecility and the timidity of
the Western nations, and that the belief in Russia’s superior mili-
tary power is hardly less a delusion.” We know how fully Marx’s
views were confirmed by the events of the Crimean War. How
just indeed was Marx when with the genuine emotion of a great
political mind he said: “Both (England and France) together have
been frightened out of the only policy which would at once have
guaranteed the preservation of peace, while maintaining their
own respectability. To the arrogance of the autocrat they have
replied with the symptoms of cowardice. They have encouraged
the very assumptions they have depreciated, just as poltroons al-
ways encourage bullies to be overbearing. If at the outset they
had used a manly style of language, adequate to the positions
cit., pp. 76-77.
^ Istoriya Rossii v XIX Veke, Vol. Ill, p. 33.
81 E. Tarle, “Nakanune Krymskoi Voiny,” Kramaya Nov\ nos. 11 12, 1940, pp.
260-270.
PANSLAVISM 891
they hold, and the pretensions they set up before the world, if
they had proved that cluster and swagger could not impose on them,
the autocrat would not only have refrained from attempting it,
hut would have entertained for them a very different feeling from
that contempt which must now animate his bosom. . . . There is
only one way to deal with a power like Russia, and that is the fear-
less way.”*®
Marx’s optimism had sources very similar to those which in-
in the old bottles. With a worthier and more equal social state,
with the abolition of caste and privileges, with free political con-
stitutions, unfettered industry, and emancipated thought, the peo-
ple of the West will rise again to power and unity of purpose,
while the Russian colossus itself will be shattered by the progress
of the masses and the explosive force of ideas. There is no good
reason to fear the conquest of Europe by the Cossacks. . .
Marx in the face of present events, and one has some right to
wonder if Marx would not now write about the “Soviet Autocrat”
ter which Nicholas I wrote to his wife on June 7th, 1844, from
Windsor at the time when he paid his visit to England: “Very
comical things are taking place here in connection with the Poles.
At the present moment there is being collected a subscription for
a ball given by swindlers: at the head of the subscription list is
the name of the Duchess of Somerset who even offered her house
for the ball, and the name oflhe Duchess of Sutherland. All these
events had taken place before my arrival; since I have been here
the wind has changed; all these ladies have become afraid that they
may defame themselves in the face of the majority of the pub-
lic which receives me so nicely. And what did they think: the
Duchess of Somerset writes to Brunnov (the Russian ambassador)
that she is desolate that .she permitted herself to be so misled that
her name appears on the list and that she has asked to have it
crossed off. Many have acted in the same way. I ordered that she be
asked not to do anything like that and that even if the subscrip-
tion does not cover the expenses of this enterprise, I shall be ready
to complete the sum. Judge for yourself what was the effect and
what was their confusion.”
given her Poland, and the divine justice has already put you at
her feet. Poland and succumbs as a martyr. And what
resisted
is Europe doing? She is pleased to proclaim her own bankruptcy.
. . The greatness of Russia is not her own achievement; it is
.
what the ideas have of the seductive and the dangerous, one must
indeed recognize the exxistence of a Russian Panslavism, only
one may deny its Slavic character and that it ever could possess
the eympathy of any independent Slav.”
C. Robert stresses another important point when speaking about
the activities of the “great protector” among the Danubian and
Adriatic Slavs. He would them on the condition that they
protect
would never Jfollow the example of Serbia and show any preten-
sion for a distinct national existence. “Let one look through the
history of these Russian protectorates since the protectorate has
been exercised over the last kings of Poland and Georgia to those
which the tsar exercises at the present time over the Serbian and
Moldavian-Wallachian principalities and over the crumbling Per-
sian empire. One will see that these various protectorates have
always had and still have as a tmique aim to prevent the protected
nations from rising from their humiliation and being reborn to
for instance, that for Nicholas I it was not easy to combine his
Revue des Deux Mondes, 1846, pp. 472-473.
p. 479.
—
ligion. Religion divided the whole Slavic world into two parts.
Bulgarians, Serbians, Great Russians, Ukrainians, and White
Ruthenians embraced Eastern Orthodoxy from a Byzantine source.
Czechs, Croatians, Slovenes, Slovaks, and Poles embraced the
Catholic religion from its Roman Source. And in addition the
that some other historical factors we shall see that at the time
reform that gave the definitive form to .the moral and intellectual
character of this Slavophil and Slavologist nation, least Slavic
in its spiritual physiognomy.
The marvellous flowering of the Russian and Polish literatures
in the nineteenth century represents again a kind of exception
among the Slavic nations. And in spite of a close parallel de-
velopment, these two literatures very often, following the same
roads of literary evolution, in many ways contrast with each
other.*®
unity among the Slavs would still appear very difficult. The cul-
tural differentiation in the march of historical development be-
came so deep that the parental affinities in the Slavic family have
been completely lost. And today the cultural type of a Russian
differs greatly from the cultural Polish type, and this would be
true for all other Slavic examples.
How significant, although in part paradoxical in the light of the
itual essence the Polish nation, and with it all Catholic Slavs, be-
®®V. S. Solov’ev, Velikii Spor i Khristianskaya Politika. Cf. Sobr. Sock, v, IV,
p. 15.
900 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
Anthropologic speculations. And from this point of view the ideas
ol^0inilevsky, for example, paved the way not only for Stalin’s
anti-European imperialism but for Hitler’s racial conceptions.
Besides, Danilevsky’s theory of historical-cultural types destroyed
the idea of the stability of European culture. From this point
his Scotch origin, with Dostoevsky and his Polish origin, and
Gogol with his Ukranian descent, not to mention Kantemir, Fon-
vizin, Delvig, Boratynski, Korolenko, Blok, and so many others?
And is it not really stupefying that the ultimate aggressiveness of
an Asiatic Scythian Panslavism found its expression in the ter-
—
lemma, Europe Russia, was not a question of speculation it —
was a question of life or death. What did Europe give to the
Poles? Every day of their life was a day of betrayal by Europe
of those ideals which Poles considered Polish ideals because of
the very fact they were European. This is the main item of the
Polish political texts of that period; and perhaps the most elo-
quent and at the same time tragic expression of these feelings is
ward our cause. And if they have ignored the duty imposed on
them by prudence, morality, and humanity, the Poles will know
how to follow him who prescribes to them the sanctity of their
.”**
rights and the love of their country. . .
For Poland was facing not only the loss of her independence
but a complete change of her historical mission. For centuries
®® W. Lednicki, Life and Culture of Poland, pp. 212 213.
904 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
she was considered the antemurale christianitatis, the rampart of
Western civilization. An hy Russia within the frames
absorption
of a Panslavistic conception would mean that Poland would be-
come an anti-Western rampart. This is what Count Valerian Kra-
sinski stressed already in 1848, foreseeing the present Polish
catastrophe; Krasinski wrote: “If however the Poles will see that
they have no chance of receiving from other nations and particu-
larly from the Germans, the necessary assistance for the recovery
of their country’s independence, and that those nations in granting
them some advantages, have no other object in view, than to make
use of them as a bugbear to frighten Russia, in order to prevent
the consolidation of the internal strength of that country by an in-
timate union of its Slavonic elements, being themselves ready to
sacrifice the Poles as soon as their interests may demand it. If such
PANSLAVISM 907
monarchists.” “The slanderous talk about new Panslavism is
part of an anti-Soviet campaign.”*®
Of course there are differences.
The Russian tsarist govern-
ment used change from time to time its attitude toward the
to
doctrines of the Muscovite Slavophils and those of the Panslavists.
All depended on the international situation. Besides, in spite of
itsMachiavellian policy the tsarist government was still bound
by precepts of international and public law as well as by inter-
national public opinion, and because of that its Russianizing
methods and proceedings were still in a certain degree moderated.
Therefore in some cases there appeared a divergence of views be-
tween the representatives of the government and the most chauv-
inistic, aggressive representatives of Russian Panslavism as, for
famous apologist of the Russification of Poland
instances, the
Katkov. Anyhow the Slavophils and Panslavists at that time rep-
resented a free, independent initiative. From time to time they
even found themselves under a governmental observation that was
not very benevolent to them, especially when their Panslavic en-
thusiasm was bringing harm to the Russian government in its re-
pared to the fate of the modern Russian citizen. Russia was not
hidden behind an iron curtain from the world, and foreign travel-
lers could visit Russia and freely observe her life. Poles, Ukrain-
ians, Lithuanians, and Russians were sent to Siberia, but tsarist
tion of the number deported by Stalin in one year. The tsars sent
Who knows, indeed, if the sole source of hope for the future
does not lie in the misery of these very people, who fought on all
the battlefields of the war for their ideals, vainly looking, at the
end of their fight, for some recognition of their human rights.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carr, E. H.: Dostoevsky, London, 1941.
Dostoievsky, F.; La Russie face a VOccident, edited by Andre Chedel
Lausanne, Editions La Concorde, 1945.
Fei.dman, W.: Dzieje Polskiej Mysli Politycznej, 3 vols., Warsaw, 1920.
Fischel, Alfred: Der Panslawismus bis zum Weltkrieg, StuttgSrt and
Berlin, 1919.
Gersiienzon, M. : htoricheskie Zapiski, Berlin, 1923.
Klarner, Z.: Slowianofilstwo w LUeraturze Pohkej lot 1800-1848,
Warsaw, 1926.
Krasinski, Count Valerian: Panslavism and Germanism, London,
1848.
Kucharzewski. J. The Origins of Modern Russia, New York, 1948.
:
1919.
Mickiewicz, a.: Les Slaves, Paris, 1914.
Milyukov, P. (Milioukov) : Le mouvement inteUectuel russe, Paris,
1918.
Pypin, a. N.: Panslavizm v ego Proshlom i Nastoyashchem (1878),
191.3.
Zdziechowski, M. Mesfanisci i Slowianofile, Cracow, 1888.
:
1924.
Zernov, N.: Three Russian Prophets, London, 1944.
Also, the works of Vladimir Solov’ev, B. Chirherin, A. L. Pogodin.
V. A. Frantzev, etc.
xxm.
European Pacifism and
Internationalism
XXUI.
Nicholas Doman
I. Introduction
ternational life.
Pacifism as a political doctrine, developed slowly from an eth-
ical conception destined to form the basis of a philosophy of life.
915
916 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
but it itill rein&itis to be {troveu wbetber this bus been an element
of importance in Eutopean pacifistni
In evaluating the spectrum of European pacifism, we must op*
etate with approaches which would be wholly inappropriate and
defective if the discussion centered around pacifism in America
or Asia. Notwithstanding the presence of Christian adjectives in
several of the pacifist movements, European pacifism is not a doc-
trine inherited from early Christianity, and certainly is not an
outgrowth of the official position of the various official Chris-
tian churches of Europe. Wherever truly Christian influences
appear in pacifist doctrines and movements, appropriate attention
will be devoted to them. Likewise, we shall not attempt to con-
n. Theories of Pacifism
the sixteenth century. The world powers of our times are the
Protestant Ang lo-Saxon countries and communistic Russia which
920 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
are not likely to select the head of the Catholic Church as the world
arbiter. Furthermore, the Islamic nations and the Asiatic powers
can be counted upon to reject schemes aimed at the restoration of
the temporal power of the church of Rome. It should not be for-
gotten that the desire of the Catholic Church to establish a just
peace and maintain it does not exclude resort to arms for the pur-
pose of defense. The doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinus clearly
viet Union, every resort to war and violence was rejected unless
itworked in the favor of the Soviet Union. Lenin, in his “Social-
ism and War,” excommunicated pacifism and reiterated that wars
will persist as long as the systems of capitalism and imperialism
continue. He referred to capitalist states when he said: “Who-
EUROPEAN PACIFISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 923
ever 'wishes a durable and democratic peace must favor civil war
against the governments and the bourgeoisie.”^
The emergence of the Soviet Union as a world power, as well '
and not even a beautiful dream,” may have spoken for the for-
mally educated Germans who were thoroughly schooled in the vio-
lently nationalist spirit, but not for the great majority of 20th
century intellectuals for whom war and progress of civilization
are antinomes. Dilapidated reactionaries with a Fascist complex
have been popular at certain times and in certain circles, but their
worshipping of warrior heroism strikes a discordant tone in the
general mental climate of the European intelligentsia. Leon Dau-
det, Charles Maurras, Jacques Bainville, Othmar Spann, the doc-
trinaries of Italian Fascism have provoked a resilient echo. At
the same time, would be erroneous to overlook the persistent
it
Peace has too often been called the absence of war. Even
strong advocates of an international order have succumbed to this
negative conception of peace. Peace certainly deserves a mor-
phological approach. It would not be out of place to use clinical
methods to analyze the problems of peace, to search for its founda-
tions, the causes of organic disturbances, local malaises, and its
ated in Germany.
Kant’s approach to the problem of lasting peace is the source
of many of the recent peace doctrines. The status of the world
has changed since 1795, when Kant published his work “Toward
Eternal Peace,” but his philosophical and logical premises re-
not be the mother, but only the midwife of a social revolution and
the social revolution the mother of eternal peace.’”^
The First World War did not toll the death-knell for all paci-
fist movements operating prior to the war. In the belligerent
countries the organization work of pacifism was necessarily stifled,
but in some of the neutral countries pacifists were permitted to
continue their activities, particularly in Switzerland and Holland.
This organizational freedom had been used not only by the schol-
arly half-pacifist international associations but also by the ab-
solute pacifists who rejected war under all circumstances. An ex-
ample of this freedom can be seen in the Amsterdam Conference
of 1914 where the anarchist-pacifists accepted a resolution offered
by G. Rijnders and agreed to oppose every war because of social
and personal convictions. In cooperation with the Swiss war re-
sisters, the partisans of the “New Road” movement, and some
*The War ReBUtera International wa« founded in Holland in 1921 and haa ita
head^artera now in Enfidd, Middlesex, England. Lord Ponaonby, the
Labor peer
was ita chairman from 1941 until hia death in 1946.
BAn Encyclopedia of Pacifism, edited by Aldous Huxley, Harper
& Brothers,
York and tendon, 1937.
New
EUROPEAN PACIFISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 931
10 The tyranny and aggressive warfare of Hitler and Mussolini greatly influenced
many of the pre-1933 pacifists. The signers of the Oxford Peace Pledge in 1933
vow^ to refuse fighting in any future war, even in case of attack. The issues of
the Second World War made many of them discard the pledge.
%2 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
the Bureau International de la Paix, and since 1901, many of
their functionaries have been its recipients:
For many years the latter two had been the pillars of the Inter-
Before the First World War the Union was a vigorous advocate
of international arbitration; it played an important role in the
creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the first Hague
EUROPEAN PACIFISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 933
Conference and the convocation of the second Hague Peace Con-
ference. After the war its efforts were devoted to the further or-
ganization of international society and the maintenance of peace.
As a forum for the parliamentarians of nearly all civilized coun-
tries, the conferences of the unions were instrumental in creating
in the minds of the delegates, a practical appreciation of many
problems of an international nature.
The European Center of the Carnegie Endowment was another
dignifiedand scholarly body whose advisory council was studded
with names also identified with the activities of the two organiza-
tions previously described. -This fact might be indicative of the
limited number of statesmen and scholars devoted to active work
for the cause of peace.
La Conciliation Internationale was established 1905 by
in
d'EstourneUes de Constant, the French Deputy. Itsavowed pro-
gram is “the development of national prosperity in favor of good
international relations and the organization of these relations on a
permanent and durable basis.” Its activities run the gamut of
functions familiar in international organizations. Among its
olic flavor of the organization was already apparent when its first
Sangilier was also the leader of the Catholic Peace sroup called *Jeune
Republiqne.*’
EUROPEAN PACIFISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 935
of the passing of this law was six months, the period of civilian
service was set at 20 months, with the obvious intention of dis-
couraging refusal to perform military service.
In Sweden the right to refuse military service was granted by
law on 21 May 1920. The objector is subject to alternative serv-
By the summer of 1946 the War Resister, a publication of the War Resisters
International, reported the reorganization of several of its continental affiliates. It
also reports that the Friedengescllschaft (German Peace Society) has been revived,
with ex-general Freiherr Von Schonaich, the absolutist pacifist, reelected president.
English translation : Richard N. Coudenfaove Kalergi, “Pan-Europe,” New York,
1926, p. 55.
m EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
There is another reason why Coudenhove-Kalergi urges the es-
tablishment of a European federal union. He warns that if such
a union is not realized “then a Russo-German alliance becomes
urged only for the sake of world peace. The drive for a United
Europe indicates first of all that political thinkers being aware of
the anachronistic nature of the national state system are search-
ing for a realistic substitute. The various projects for a united
Europe cleverly indicate that the Haushoferian concept of great
area amalgamations has seized the imagination of so many prac-
tical thinkers. The advocacy of a United States of Europe by
Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi, op. at., p. 45.
laRriond, Painleve, de Jouvenel, Loucheur, Nitti, Chancellor Marx, Paul Lodie,
Sfono, Sfona, Thomae G. Moaoryk, Benes, Vondetvelde, Karl Renner. Conspicueae
were the endonemoiu of Joaeph Coillouz and Msgr. Seipel of Austria, no leftists
by any stretch of the imagination.
EUROPEAN PACIFISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 939
Herriot and Briand is a case in point. Her riot in his book “TTie
United States of Europe” draws encouragement for his project
from the experience of Louis Loucheur who examined the prob*
lem of European* economic unity under the patronage of the
Vienna Chamber of Commerce, and Joseph Cailloux who ad-
vocated the establishment of a vast European market within a
Pan-Europe organization.
Aristide Briand another brilliant exponent of utilitarian pa-
is
Prior to the First World War the quest for peace was, to a
large extent, the quest for international arbitration. Such con-
cepts as collective security and disarmament figured much less
in the discussions of those who wanted to find the formula for
peace. But after the War, peace was sought through disarma-
ment, or at least through the discussion of the -subject of dis-
armament.®" At first glance the importance attached to disarma-
ment seems subordinate. Individual pacifists, like Berta von
Suttner, in her book “Down with Arms” did not fail to see a
proximate casual relationship between armaments and war. The
diplomatic agencies of the European states and the more digni-
See the clever dissertation of Carl Schmitt on this question in his “Beeriff des
Politischen,” Berlin, 1927.
JO Xhe subject of this study necessarily relegates to a mere cursory reference such
^ortive episodes as the Locarno Pact of 1925 and the Briand-Kellogg Pact out-
lawing war. Such treatment of these pacts may be justified by the footnote
like
role they exercised on the preservation of peace.
EUROPEAN PACIFISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 941
concerned with international peace gave the question
fied societies
tary aggression. They are also the first steps toward that general
reduction and limitation of armaments which they seek to bring
about as one of the most fruitful preventives of war and which
it will be one of the first duties of the League of Nations to pro-
mote.”
After the compulsory disarmament of the Central Powers,
France pursued a persistent policy of tieing in disarmament with
collective security. The Cabinets of Poincare and Tardieu par-
ticularly pursued this policy, and it was also the principal pos-
tulate of the foreign policies of the other French Cabinets be-
tween the two world wars. When Leon Blum, as the head of the
French Socialist Party became the French Prime Minister in
1936, he hastened to reiterate this tenet of French diplomacy.
This may have surprised those who looked upon Blum as the suc-
cessor of Jean Jaures, and the leader of a party with consider-
able pacifist tinge. “Undoubtedly, collective security is the con-
The final session of the Conference was on May 29, 19-34, but the Conference
had been moribund since October, 1933.
942 EUROPEi^ IDEOLOGIES
dition of disarmament, since no State would agree to disarm un-
less mutual assistance offered it a degree of certainty; but the
tion that has the courage to be the first to throw away its arms will
win for itself one of the greatest names in history.” It took Ram-
sey MacDonald some time to outlive his reputation as an opponent
^The United Sutee and Italy were the moat conapicuout opponenta of thia pro-
posal
944" EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
of the British war effort in 1914-18. Herbert Morrison, who
played such an impressive role in the Second World War was a
conscientious objector in the First War. Phillip Snowden, later
Like most leftists all over the world, after the First World War
they supported the League of Nations and the international ma-
chinery built around it. There was a certain mental affinity be-
ternationalism.
The political climate and the underlying nationalist spirit of
public opinion has not permitted pacifism, whether allied to so-
cialism or not, to play as prominent a role in public affairs in
Germany as it did in Great Britain or France. Pacifism as a pro-
gram for international policy remained on the fringes of the Ger-
man political arena. Unlike Bebel and his followers, Karl Lieb-
knecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and their associates among leftwing
socialists, were courageous pacifists until the fall of the Hohen-
zollern Empire. But their pacifism was the half-pacifism or rela-
tive pacifism of those Marxists who embraced violence both in na-
tional and international politics as soon as the old order began to
stagger. Later in the Weimar era German political life failed to
produce outstanding statesmen closely identified with pacifism as
a technique and categorical program for foreign policy. It would
be historically inaccurate to call Walter von Rathenau or Strese-
mann pacifists, merely because they sponsored international agree-
ments destined to reintroduce Germany into the international com-
munity.
EUROPEAN PACinSM AND INTERNATIONALISM 947
More important, however, were the writings of German scholars
on international law and politics, the activities of the various Ger-
man peace organizations, and the pacifist onslaught of an impres-
sive array of German and Austrian authors. With his book. The
Peace in Europe,^ Eugene Schlief, a German lawyer inaugurated
a new school of thought among German internationalists and
pacifists. He demanded an objective-juridical approach to the
problem of peace and pacifism within the realm of “Realpolitik.”
His realistic pacifism is reflected in the writings and activities of
Professor Walter Schucking, one of the greatest German interna-
tional lawyers, and Alfred Fried, the Nobel Prize winning Vien-
nese journalist. In the organization “Neues Vaterland,” Schuck-
ing was able, during the First World War, to conduct propaganda
for his pacifistic views and for an international society organized
on principles of law. After the First World War, with his younger
colleague Hans Wehberg, he belonged to the small group of Ger-
man scholars who worked
so diligently toward peace within the
League of Nations. At the International Peace Congresses to-
gether with Senator La Fontaine, Fried, Quidde, and Professor
C. van Vollenhoven he argued for the minority point of view, sanc-
tioning defensive wars and the use of an international force in
case of disobedience of international arbitration verdicts.”
Another outstanding German scholar, Professor F. W. Foerster,
a former professor at the University of Munich, in his books, arti-
cles and teachings, represented a school of pacifism that was not
identified with refusal of military service. For several years dur-
ing and after the First World War, he successfully defied the mili-
and nationalistic authorities in (Germany but ultimately
taristic
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Del Vecchio, Giorgio: II fenomeno idla guerra e Fidea della pace,
Torino, 1911.
FiUEO, Alfred H. : Handbuch der Friedensbewegung, Berlin-Leipzig,
1911-13; A brief outline of the nature and aims of Pacifism, New York,
1915; Prohieme der Friedenstechnik, Leipzig, 1918.
Goldscheid, Rudolf: Friedensbewegung und Menschensokonomie”
1912.
EUROPEAN PACIFISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 951
^OSS, Leo; Pazifismus und ImperioHsnuu, Ldpzig-Wien, 1931.
Heimot, Emuato: The United States of Europe, translate by Rq;in*
aid J. Dmgle, New York, 1930.
Huxlet, Aldous: An Encyclopedia of Pacifism, New York and Lon-
don, 1937.
CoudenhOVE-Kalerci, Richabd N.: Pan-Europe, New York, 1926.
Kobleh, Franz: Gewalt und GewaUlosigheU, Zurich, 1928.
Lange, Christian: Histcire de la doctrine paeifique et de son influ-
ence sur le developpement du droit international, Recueil des Cours do
I’Academie de Droit International, Vol. XIII, 1926.
Leonard, Rathond: Vers une organisation politique et iuridique de
VEurope, Paris, 1935.
Lict, Bahthelemy de: The Conquest of Violence, London, 1937.
Litvinov, Maxim: UU.R.S.S. et la Paix, Paris, 1939.
Madariaga, Salvador de: Disarmament, New York, 1929.
Nicolai, G. F.: The Biology of War, New York, 1918; Aufruf an die
Europaer, Wien, 1923.
Novicov, I. A.: War and Its Alleged Benefits, translated from French,
London, 1912.
Rappard, William E.: The Common Menace of Economic and Military
Armaments, London, 1936; The Quest for Peace, New York, 1931.
Rogge, Heinrich: Nationale Friedenspolitik, Berlin, 1934.
ScHELER, Max: Die Idee des Friedens und der Padfismus, Berlin,
1931.
ScHUEF, Eugen: Der Friede in Europa, Leipzig, 1892.
SCHUECKING, Walter: Der Bund der Votker, Leipzig, 1918; Die
Revision der V olkerbundssazzung in Hinblick auf den Kelloggpakt, Ber-
lin, 1931.
Sibley, Mulford, Q.: The Political Theories of Modern Pacifism, The
Pacifist Research Bureau, Philadelphia, 1944.
Van Vollenhoven, C. The Law of Peace, London, 1936.
:
Wehberg, Hans: Die Aechtung des Krieges, Berlin, 1930; Die Fuehrer
'
Editorial Note
cdmost every century has brought forth pirns for vari&us types
of European Unions, such as the *‘Grand Design’* (revised edition,
1638), by Mammilien de Bethune, due de Sully, and friend of
Henri IV, who proposed a plan for a European cooperative sys-
tem; in 1693, William Penn wrote “Essay Toward the Present and
Future Peace of Europe’* in which the founder of Pennsylvania
proposed an “Imperial Dyet, Parliament or State of Europe.” In
1712, Charles Irenee Castel de Saint Pierre advocated a Euro-
pean Confederation, a plan which Jean Jacques Rousseau later
of various projects.
During World War II the idea gained further support: demo-
cratic European underground literature featured the idea of a
European Federation, and the great vision was revived. Such pro-
minent statesmen as the Polish Prime Minister, Wladyslaw Si-
korski, and the Czechoslovak President, Benes, realized that a
Regional, Eastern European Federation would furnish a founda-
tion, at least, for a European settlement.
Sikorski’s and Benes’s plea for a federated Eastern Europe
was probably the only concrete and specific plan advocated by
heads of governments during the Second World War the former —
a responsible Prime Minister, the latter a President of the Re-
public.
General Sikorski had two ambitious desires: one, to establish
a lasting settlement insuring permanent peace between the Soviet
—
Union and Poland to change the history of Russo-Polish re-
lations, not solely the temporary politics; two, to establish a
democratic Eastern European Federation between the Baltic and
the Aegean, a plan which Thomas Masaryk, President- philosopher
of Czechoslovakia, had favored during World War I.
• A
student of the history of European Federali«ni may be referred to a slhnu-
lating Volume by S. J. llemleben, Plam jor World Peace Through Six Centuries,
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1943.
EUROPEAN FEDERALISM 957
Sikorski approached both problems with courage and sincerity;
rather than cautiously discussing his ideas in a diplomatic man-
ner, he propagated them openly with audacity and vision, chal-
lenging history for the price of peace. Although history has chosen
an road than that outlined by Sikorski, future
entirely different
historians will undoubtedly recognize him cls one of the great and
most hottest statesmen produced in that tragic era of European
history.
Sikorski’ s plan was to organizea regional federation of east-
ern European states as a bridge between the West and the East.
This federation would form a friendly link between the western
democracies and the Soviet Union, without serving as a spear-
head against either.Because of the problem of Germany, he was
reluctant to propagate a straight European Federation: millions of
eastern Europeans were slaughtered by the German Army and the
German-Nazis; twice within twenty-five years Germany has in-
tarum regime. . .
.”
EUROPEAN FEDERALISM
by
Reginald D. Lang
960
EUROPEAN FEDERALISM 961
understood that the nations could nurture and enjoy their diver-
sities only in a Europe that had not been conquered by any one of
them. The successive imperialisms of the parts not only menaced
the several States; they also threatened Europe. The coalitions
could be formed only because there was a common agreement
among the nations to preserve a Europe that permitted particular-
ism. This was the negative pole to the positive pole of dynastic and
962 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
nationalistic imperialisms; bothwere necessary to the current of
European life.
In contemporary Europe, however, the inter-play of the ideals
of universalism and particularism are self-destroying. The bal-
ance of power no longer protects the corpus of Europe from the
swollen imperialism of its parts, and twice the several parts have
had to defend their integrity by relying upon non-European pow-
ers. An artificial stability can be imposed externally with the
apparatus of imperialism, but a natural stability among the States
must correspond to their vital needs, and hence it must be an
order among them in which they concur. This is the only alter-
native to wars and preparations for wars against imperialism an-
ticipated or imperialism triumphant. The rivalries of the Euro-
pean nations generated both by attempts at universalism, and
efforts to defeat them have made a desert that cannot be called
ization.
form, and we hope the last, of what has been occurring in Europe
since the 15th century. Political nationalism has been, in reality,
an imperial weapon exerted upon the European continent by dy-
nasties and organized nations. European history during four cen-
turies has presented a panorama of particularism being puffed to
the pattern of universalism; and therein lies its irony. And the
troubles *of Europe have arisen because there has been no uni-
versal power that could check the imperial ambitions of the seg-
ments, and yet not absorb the cultural particularism of the parts.
The situation is, and has been, essentially cancerous.
The struggle for existence and power among the nations now
leads to their destruction in wars of annihilation. Nor is this an ac-
cident of science, for ancient history is a catalogue of wars of an-
nihilation. The reason lies in the circumstances. It is a character-
istic feature of all religious and civil wars, because they are con-
testsbetween irreconcileable ways of living that cannot occupy
the same space at the same “time. European wars are civil wars be-
964 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
cause they are fought between members of one society, and they
partake of the character of religious wars because hostile national-
isms are implacably intolerant. Between 1648 and 1914 wars in
Europe, with the exception of the Napoleonic interval, were
limited because there was, even among contending dynasts, a feel-
is no principle of accomodation.
Therefore, if Europe is to escape an unnatural fate, and not
“like the monster of the deep gnaw itself to death,” a principle
of order, governing the political organization of Europe, that re-
spects alike the ideal of particularism and the ideal of univer-
sality must be found.
Whenever the wise and farsighted among Europeans have at-
land; it also sets a legal pattern for political, economic, and so-
cial controversies.Not only are the relations between the States
and the Nation, and between the departments of the federal gov-
ernment defined in the Constitution, but the general and norma-
tive clauses, such as “interstate commerce,” the “due process”
and “necessary and proper” clauses are also legalized. In this
EUROPEAN FEDERALISM 973
selves as intermediaries between the letter of the law and the cir-
is the skin of a living thought and may vary in color and con-
tent according to the circumstances and the time in which it is
rises again and again, and each time it is more urgent. Will it
swell into some triumphant chorale? Or will it vanish irrevocably
into the silence of lost aspirations?
But in the years of crisis there was not total and utter blind-
Little Entente
Balkan Fedepalism
end men looked for coraeth not, and a way is there where no man
thought.”
In the absence of a genuine federalism, political relations fol-
lowed the conventional modes in the Balkans during the truce era
regular meetings of foreign ministers; a draft treaty of Concilia-
tion, Arbitration, and Judicial Settlement, including the usual
stipulations, non-aggression, pacific settlement of disputes, and
mutual assistance. But the unprofitableness of these devices was
demonstrated when Bulgaria and Albania refused to become par-
ties to a Balkan Pact until the problem of the non-fulfillment of
the minorities treaties had been solved. The Greek National
Group then proposed that a permanent Minorities Office be es-
“Pan-Europe”
trating the nations without which they could not exist, and in which
they must participate or perish. Hence Pan-Europe is not merely
a scheme for uniting Europe, it is the idea of Europe.
.
Briand Plan
The Briand plan, and in this it bore the mark of the times, rep-
resented French pdlicy as well as a European aspiration. And in
general the replies of the governments pointed to this vulner-
ability. And this undoubtedly also explains why the plan ap-
proached but never reached a European character. The French
were seeking to establish a system in Europe which would
give them a feeling of security, for the legal security of pacts piled
upon pacts did not allay a nervousness about the future. As “Per-
tinax,” speaking to a British audience in November 1929 said;
“Instinctively most Frenchmen do not trust much to all these guar-
antees, and to me they are not unlike a jigsaw puzzle. When you
think you have finished your puzzle, you suddenly find that your
last space is empty, and something is missing somewhere. . .
.”
ness of the organization, while the Italian reply was sharply cri-
two will rise and fall together; they are mutually dependent. But
Antonin Basch, A Price for Peace, Columbia University Press, 1945, p. 10.
EUROPEAN FEDERALISM 1005
it is only in the reform of tliat system that the tensions can be re-
would make western Europe the eastern Europe of the interim be-
tween the second and third World Wars. Others, however, fear
that a union of western Europe would inevitably become an An^o-
American march against Russia. A frontier is more likely to
possess two cutting edges than one.
Among the nations of western Europe there exist many of the
ingredients of a federation. They do not feel insecure vis-a-vis
one another, but they do feel insecure as the center of rivalries
among the Big Three. They have similar social structures. Their
trade with one another is approximately 50% of their total. They
can readily construct a federation on a common law for common
defense, a common foreign policy, and to encourage common eco-
nomic interests.
The attitudes of Great Britain and France are crucial for its
18 Paul Reynaud, 165 Atlantic Monthly, 445, 1940. Albert Guerard, Antioch /?e-
view. Spring 1946, p. 136.
1008 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
emerges: Anglo-French conversations at the highest levels upon the
subject of a federal compact between the two countries took place
after the outbreak of the war.
The danger of a western combination lies in the possibility that
it would be converted into an alliance against Soviet Russia. Yet,
civilization has long been the symbol should quicken the regenera-
tive elements now concealed or crushed in the ruins made by the
negativity of an erroneous idea. This new universalism will trans-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1013
1014 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
ings, however, the land reforms coming after 1918 constituted
F. G.
XXV
Parallelism And
Progress
XXV
by
Feliks Gross
lions of workers of the 19th centuiy' was not happy at all. There
were long working hours, low salaries, periodic unemployment,
poor housing and hard work under unhealthy, adverse conditions.
In most of the European countries, moreover, there was a lack
of adequate political rights, and national and political oppression
in addition. For those who suffered, it was not difficult to form-
ulate what they needed; to satisfy their needs meant progress for
them. Some of the radical idealists may have thought about pro-
gress in utopian terms, but for a laborer this meant simply: bet-
1021
1022 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
of living than fifty years before. Simultaneously, after 1870,
there were more political rights in nearly all European countries,
with the least advance in Russia, where except for abolition of
serfdom, the path of progress was slowed down. Especially in the
Scandinavian and English speaking countries, the road of so-
ing, the eight hour labor day was introduced, social security as
an elaborate and wide system of protection of a worker against
sickness, disability and unemplo)rment made long strides, and,
simultaneously, the working man and the farmer won more and
more influence in the government without curtailing the civil rights
and basic liberties of his fellow citizens. In all these cases the
economic and social welfare of the working masses was consider-
ably advanced, while simultaneously a parallel progress was made
in the political sphere.
Parallel advancement in the sphere of economic, social, and
political institutions on the one hand, and in the sphere of demo-
cratic liberties on the other, is not characteristic of all countries
for aU times. The initial parallel development in political and
social and partially in economic spheres was already upset be-
tween 1917 and the 1920’s by a growing trend toward totalitarian
systems. Communists advocated an unbalanced, anti-parallel sys-
tem in which advance in economic forms would be achieved at ihe
expense of human liberties accompanied by a definite setback in
the sphere of political institutions. Fascists promised glory for
the omnipotent national state and fulfillment of the dreams of
national megalomaniacs. This glory was to be combined with
some type of economic security for their own nationals at the
price of war and conquest over foreign nationals. Freedom and
civil liberties was the price a man had to pay for the promised
Utopia.
PARALLELISM AND PROGRESS 1023
iMitrany, David, The Land and Peasant in Rumania, Oxford University Press
’
London, 1930, p. 38.
^ Mitrany, David, Ihid.
** Swietocliowski, Aleksander, Histor/a Chlopow Polskich, History of the Polish
Peasants (in Polish) Warsaw, 1947 edition, p. 117 and following.
PARALLELISM AND PROGRESS
1025
is a great day for human beings. But for the turkeys which are
eaten, it is a disastrous day, a dies irae. Glorious days of the
early Rumanian national autonomy were disastrous for the peas-
antry. The same is true of the days of the rise of the Muscovite
state. What one class regarded as advance ^what might have—
been regarded as progress even by the enlightened public opinion
of the day —was degradation for the peasantry.
< Vernadsky, George, History of Russia, New York, 1944, p. 69, also Pokrovsky,
History of Russia, New York, 1931, chapters III and VII; Kluchevsky, V. 0., A
History of Russia, New York, Vols. II and III.
1026 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
in other fields, especially in politics and in the decline of demo-
cratic institutions.
Liberation of the serfs in Austro-Hungaty vras accomplished
by Alexander Bach, the post-revolutionary (1848) Austrian
prime-minister, whom Oscar Jaszi calls “The incarnation of the
new reactionary system” and whose regime was described by his
former comrade, Adolph Fischhof, as “a standing army of sol-
diers, a sitting army of officials, a kneeling army of priests, and
a creeping army of denunciators.”® After the collapse of the
revolution in 1848, Bach organized a classic police state. His
system was a copy of Mettemich’s. Bach, with his absolutist sys-
tem, abolished serfdom in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. This
great reform did not transform the absolutist monarchy into a
democracy, a police state into a liberal and constitutional system.
A was Russia. Abolition of serfdom was
similar historical case
an act of an absolutist monarchy.
True, Alexander II, an en-
lightened despot, was of a gentler, more humane character than
his father. Emperor Nicholas I. With all his personal qualities,
Alexander II was not a liberal, and he ruled without a parliament,
even though twenty years later, Melikov, his Minister of Interior,
made some plans for a State Council. The fact remains, however,
that the liberation of peasantry was not followed by a democratic
reform. Alexander II said to the nobility: “Better that the re-
form should come from above than wait until serfdom is abolished
from belftw.”® The Manifesto regarding the abolition of serf-
dom, signed in 1861, was not followed up by a manifesto which
introduced a parliament, civil rights and democratic institutions.
Russia remained an absolute monarchy until the revolution. In
Congress Poland, in that part of Poland which was under Russian
domination, a democratic national uprising was cruelly and bru-
hundreds were executed and thousands were sent
tally suppressed,
ing for their own rights. Napoleon, who brought with his flags of
conquest the liberation of serfs from age old bondage, was de*
feated in 1812 by an army of Russian serfs defending Czarist
Russia. They did not fight for their social liberation, but for en-
slavement. Defeat of Napoleon in Russia delayed the liberation
of Russian serfs for fifty years. Still Russian peasantry preferred
a national tyrant than a foreign liberator.
Is there much difference between Stalin’s policy in the Soviet
Union and the reforms of Bach, Stolypin, Alexander II, and Fred-
erick the Great? Industrialization of the Soviet Union and higher
literacy has been accomplished in a system which is politically
oppressive. Democratic civil liberties have been abolished in
Soviet Russia. A minority party rules over a majority. A dic-
meant the end of the war. There was a general feeling of the
great insecurity which is now with us. The man in the street felt
immediately the coming dangers as an antelope in the prairies
feels the approaching danger. In The New York Daily News ap-
peared the shortest editorial probably ever written: “The Atom
Bomb is here to slay. But are we?” This was typical of what the
people in factories, offices and streets were feeling. In a single
issue oi The New York Times, the printed columns of the “Letters
to the Editor” page expressed more fear than on an average day of
the cruellest war in history. . “Let us dump the whole thing
. .
by
Lewis Corey
1035
1036 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
A second danger conies from fascism. Fascism is spawned by
a liberal democracy not wholly clean of feudal survivals, racial
discrimination, and hatreds, and by monopoly reaction against
liberty — in brief, by a liberal democracy that has not mastered
social change for progressive values. Fascism represents a frus-
tration of progressive social change. It is total negation of in-
dividual liberty, dignity, and self-development. Fascism is bar-
barism in scientific technological modem dress.
Communism, a third threat, also destroys liberty and degrades
the individual, but through a perversion of progressive social
change. It arose out of an earlier socialism that throbbed with
passion for greater social justice and liberty. But Communism
sets up a state that is a totalitarian master, with institutional ar-
a society in which the people move and have their being exclu-
sively in the state.
A final, more subtle danger, is the drift of an increasing num-
ber of “liberals” toward totalitarian ideas. These liberals, in
their rejection of free enterprise, also reject, or at least belittle,
dividualism.
(I) Revolution against feudalism began with the revival of
trade and the emergence of a merchant class. One ideological mani-
Free enterprise and the laissez-faire state did not emerge fully
(and then only in the countries of Northwestern Europe and North
America) until after the democratic revolutions abolished the
absolute monarchy and set limits on the state power. Free enter-
prise did not mean profit-making only; was a concept of eco-
it
govern most.
Against liberalism, the philosophy and practice of democracy
emphasized the majority, the people, equality.
Democracy wanted equal political rights through universal suf-
frage. It wanted, in addition, a measure of economic equality
as the basis of political equality and freedom. Liberalism con-
sidered ownership of property as necessary for liberty. So' lower
middle-class democrats (Jacobins, Jefferson, Jackson) started
ECONOMIC PLANNING WITHOUT STATISM - 1041
on a wage-or-salary job for the right to work and live. The lib-
erty-giving quality of property is negated by monopoly; and mo-
nopoly property becomes, over large areas of our economy, an
anti-liberal parasitism of oligarchical absentee ownership.
Much of recent American political history is the story of efforts
by small businessmen, the farmers, and propertyless people to use
political power to limit or destroy monopoly by government reg-
who fought the Nazi state only on the religious issue). In Amer-
ica, Protestant sects have multiplied and
become ingrown, while
American “fundamentalism” has become increasingly amenable
to exploitation by crackpot fascist groups. As the crisis grows
nored him, too, for his socialism was libertarian and individual-
istic. (Marxists also ignored Mill’s prophetic warning that “o
yoke of uniformity in opinion and practice** might be imposed
on society as “some particular doctrine in time rallies the majority
around it, and organizes social institutions comparable to it-
self.”)
Marx has been proved correct in his major criticism of capi-
talism: that the dynamics of capitalist production drive toward
an economic breakdown that makes new economic institutions in-
munist bureaucrats, who have lost their faith in the always chang-
ing party line, as a result of their spiritual self-mutilation can
ECONOMIC PLANNING WITHOUT STATISM 1049
Socialism? ... I stand for (1) an integral federalism and (2) for
an ethical conception of socialism which does not demand a
. . .
liberty and human dignity are conceptions that will never perish.”
Silone is right. While the earlier Marxist movement did, in
large measure, emphasize liberal-democratic and ethical values,
it fell (in its Communist variant) into the trap of using means
that perverted or destroyed the very ends it sought.
The Marxist was caught in the pitfall of utopian belief. Man
was by nature good; the wrong institutions of private property
and class rule alone made him evil. Eliminate capitalist property
and rule, the last evil institutions, and man will be good. The con-
sequences of the belief were disastrous. Socialism tended to
slight moral values and concentrate on institutional change.
and the totalitarian state inevitably feed one into the other, at the
cost of all individual values.
Hence the basic principles of economic reconstruction must in-
clude:
1. The limitation of nationalization, or socialization, to large-
scale industry. Socialization ofmonopoly enterprises, which dom-
inate 70 per cent of American industrial activity, is enough to
end the economic crisis and to build a new economic order with a
policy of production for human welfare and freedom.
2. In addition to this limitation, socialized industry should be
made to assume functional organizational forms that promote
diversity, self-government, and decentralization within a state that,
whatever new economic functions it may acquire, would still re-
exist; they are part of the diversity of freedom. Only those in-
terest-conflicts that impair or destroy liberal democracy should be
abolished. As Horace Fries has suggestively argued, a liberal
economic and social democracy will encourage the use of cre-
ative intelligence through scientific method of fashion mediation
techniques for peaceful, cooperative settlement of conflicts on all
levels. Proposals for eternal harmony and final perfection through
totalitarianpower end up in encouraging brutish imperfection,
depending as they do on the intervention of the absolute slate
dominated by an oligarchy of unlimited power-individualists.
The decisive aspect of the liberal economic democracy or lib-
eral democratic socialism (call it what you will) that I propose
is this; It consciously, deliberately proposes new economic ar-
theory. But the state remains a limited-power state with all the
- Fur a more complete dit>cussion of thoM* ideas see Lewis (,orey. The Unfinish^
Task: Economic Reconstruction for Democracy (1942K opprialh chapterh 17 and 18.
1054 EUROPEAN IDEOLOGIES
develops a theory of bureau-
One '‘liberal” political scientist
elites. The
<u»cy that a justification of despotic bureaucratic
is
writes, is necessary
representative character of bureaucracy, he
for democracy; this “representative” character “must
be sought
in a common world view [and] in the officials’ commitments to the
purposes that the state is undertaking to serve. Bureaucracies, . . .
go beyond the economics of the early liberals. But the state must
remain a limited*power state in a free plurali^ic society. In the
By
Sidney Hook
1059
—
cate him, to enlarge his moral vision as well as his material power.
Labor movements have come to maturity slowly in a culture whose
classical and feudal traditions regarded the activity of labor as
a badge of a menial social The conceptions of work in-
estate.
movement at its best does not act as a pressure group, one amoi^
others, snatching what it can for itself independently of what hap-
pens to the rest. Where a labor imion does act merely as a pres-
sure group, it has succumbed to capitalist ideology. In the long
run it fails to command public confidence and cannot resist the
weight of other pressure groups that combine against it.
point of view, the best methods are not necessarily those that are
mechanically the most efficient. There is always the human cost
to be considered and provided for. Society cannot shrug away its
bare necessities.
In its humanism, its democracy, its secularism, the philosophy
of the labor movement is continuous with the best thought of the
Renaissance, the Reformation, the English, American, and French
Revolutions. It is also in harmony with the teachings of the sound-
INDEX
Absolutism, 360 Balfour Declaration, 630, 636, 639
Action Populaire Ind^pendente, 691 Balkans, 16
Africa, North, C20, 668, 671 Balkan Federalism, 987, 988, 989,
Agrarian 990, 991, 992, 993, 994, 996
Cooperative Syndicate, 418 Balmes, Jaime, 608
Law of Socialist-Revolutionary Barere, 671, 672
Party, 468 Barnes, Harry Elmer, 642
Organizations, 427, 444 Barres, Maurice, 676, 774, 776
Aksakov, C., 824, 826, 833, 847, 848, Baruch Atom Plan, 64
849 Basques, 694, 696
Alexandria, 666 National Party of, 634, and the
Aldisio, Salvatore, 632 Spanish Civil War, 628
Alexander II, 469, 666, 869, 861 Bateson, Wm., 441
Alldeutsche Verband, 746, 793 Bauer, Otto, 86
Alliance, Industrial & Agricultural Beaconsfield, Lord, 618
373 Beethoven, Ludwig, 793-794
Alsace-Lorraine, 660, 689 Belgium, 660, 669, 667, 668, 671, 672
America, South, 668 Belgian Labor Party, 206, 207
Ammon, Otto, 786 Bellarmine, Cardinal, 499
Amsterdam Conference, 928 Benedict XV, 618
Anarchism, 61, 72, 328, 329, 331 Benes, Edouard, 966, 986
Anarchist Federation of Iberia, Bentham, Jeremy, 249, 263, 673, 920
376 Bergson, Henri, 398, 400, 403, 408
Anarchists, 339, 918 Berle, Adolf A., 179 (n)
Anarcho-Bolshevism, 339 Berlin, 620
Andreev, A., 414 Berliner Tageblatt, 662
Antonelli, Cardinal, 606, 610-611 Bessarabia, 833
Arabs, 618, 622, 628, 632 Bidault, Georges, 631-632
Arana-Goiri, Sabino, 696 Birnbaum, Nathan, 624
Argentina, 671, 672 Bismark, 104, 106, 106, 183, 744, 866
Aristotle, 159, 496, 770 Black Shirts, 672, 713
Arndt, Ernst M., 744 Blanqui, Auguste, 186 IT, 330
Aryans, 667, 672 Blanquists, 364
Ashkenazi, 628 Blanquist Socialism, 192
Asquith, Lord, 693
Bliokh, Ivan, 246
Assimilation; 623, 624, 625, 631, 641
Blok, Alexander, 866
Assimilationists, 616
Blum, Leon, 941
Atomic bomb, 1030-1031
Boerne, Ludwig, 661
Austria, 486, 626, 636, 625, 636, 667,
Bohemian Reformation, 366
660, 666, 668, 671
Authoritarianism, 624-626 Bolingbroke, 670, 577
Avenarius, 662 Bolshevism, 369, 373, 381, 382
Avvakum, 846 Bolsheviks, 66, 66, 68, 69, 190
Bolshevist bureaucracy, 361
Babeuvist & Babeuf, 60, 106, 167 Bourgeoisie, 767
Bahr, Hermann, 746 Brahmism, 660
Bakunin, Michael A., 86, 98, 183 ff, Briand, Aristide, 426, 938, 946
316, 319, 328, 341, 330, 338, 369, Briand Plan, 999-1006
360-362, 366, 859-863, 891 British Government, 636, 636
1067
:
1068 INDEX
British Labor Party, 194 Chateaubriand, 904
Broclcway Fenner, 876 Chechen-Ingust, 611
Browder, Earl, 12, 87, 94 Chicherin, 828, 898
Brown, Francis J., 563 Chmelintsky, 619
Buddhism, 660 Christians, 322
“Bund”, 616, 672 Christian democracy, 616-618, 681'
Bureaucracy, 98, 1064 636
Soviet 99 Democratic Party in Italy, 632-638
Bureaucrats, 72, 81 Dictators, 626-680
Burke, Edmund, 667, 672, 673 Socialists, 214
Burnham, James, 28, 81 Christianism against Racist Neo*
Burns, C. Delisle, 644, 662, 681 Paganism, 622
Byron, 116 (n), 904 Church and modem State, 466-69,
Byzantium, 881 463-66, 602-606, 609-612, and po-
litical powers, 617, and State in
Caesarism, 348, 691 Portugal, 487-8, 683-4, and totali-
Cagoulards, 661, 672 tarian State, 46^468, 490, 611-514,
Calhoun, J. C., 668 636, in Spain 618, 628-80
Caligula, 666 Churchill, Winston, 968, 969
“Camere del La^o” (Chambers City-Republics, Renaissance, 311
of Labor), 206 Class Struggles, 64, 174 ff
Canada, 671 Classless Society, 67, 69, 78, 81
Carlists, 724 Von Clausewitz, Carl, 798, 799
Carlyle, R. A. &
A. J., 496 Clemenceau, 742
Carlyle, Thomas, 733, 734, 779, 780 Cobden, William, 117, 249, 260
Carnegie, Andrew, 246 Collective Farm, 478
Carson, Sir Edward, 693 Collectivism, 66, 362
Cart Del Lavoro, 706 Authoritarian, 96
Catharine II, 311 Totalitarian, 99
Catholic Colonization, 633, 634, 642, 648
Church, 837, and anti-Semitisim, Combination Laws, (or Acts), 114,
621-624 117, 119, 123 ff, 129, 146, 166
Clericals, 590 Comintern, 12
Liberals, 606-610 Commune, 767
Parties, 616-619, 631-636, 686 Communist party, 12, 61, 68, 69, 71,
SUte, 604, 610-612 73, 89, 99, 387
Catholics and Authoritarianism, Communism, 60, 60, 74, 76, 76, 79,
624-626, and Democracy, 486-492, 80, 94, 338, 661, 1086, 1044, 1049,
601-602, 610-611, 616-618, 631-636 1060
Catholicism, 821, 868, 866, 874, and Communists, 66, 69, 84, 90, 92, 96,
anti-Semitism, 621-624, and Poli- 368, 369, 362, 381, 882, 1022
tics, 486 ff, 631-636 Communist-Anarchist, 829
Cavour, 684 International, 86, 89, 90, 92, 96,
Centralism, 371, 372 831, 699
Cerejeira, Cardinal, 634 Manifesto, 103, 106, 149, 161, 166,
168, 174, 176
Chaadaev, 818, 859, 868, 772, 813, 817
Corote, Auguste, 676, 688, 761
Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 773
Condorcet, 162, 163, 777, 778
779, 781, 792
Confederation Gendrale du Travail,
Champetier de Ribes, Auguste, 631 368
Charlemagne, 496, 667, 692, 742, 862, Congress of European Federalists,
863 969
Charles V, 499 Congress of Krewo, 817
Chartism, 134 ff, 201 Congress of Poland, 888
INDEX 1069
Conscientious objection, 916, 986-937 Dictatorhip, 66, 71
Constituent Assembly, 419, 422, 466, Democratic, 67
468 Personal, 63
Constitution of the Independent Cro- Proletarian, 63, 72, 73, 74, 99, 860,
atian Feasant Republic, 428 861, 364, 873, 874, 381
Constitution of Neimar, 796 Diderot, Denis, 162, 366
Constitution of U.S.S.R., 62, 68, 412 Dimitrov, George M., 87, 893, 894,
Constitutionalism, 603-604 895
Dissenters, Political, 68
Continental American Workingmen’s
Association, 386 Dolfuss, Chancellor, 17, 625
Coin Laws, 119, 128, 146 Domestic Freedom, 242
Cooperative Movement, 211 Dostoevski, 790, 822, 846-69, 906
Consumer, 212 Dreyfus, Alfred, 661, 774, 776
Cooperatives, 16, 684, 1062 Dualism, 978, 980, 983
Cooperative Congress of 1892, 216 Dunning, W. A., 669, 666
Cooperative societies, 136, 374 Dupanloup, Msgr., 607-608
Corporate State, 697-710
Eastern Question, 809
Corporatism, 6^-626
Economic Liberty, 240
Cortes, 449-60, 496-696
Planning, 1061-1062
Coudenhove-Kalergi, R. N., 937-38,
Eight Hour League, 215
966, 969
Einstein, Albert, 66, 662
Council of Trent, 602
Eire, 693
Councils of Toledo, 494-496
Emancipation, Autoemancipation,
Counter Reformation, 486, 686
623, 624, 626, 626, 631, 649, 660,
Crawford, V. M., 606
662
Crawford, D. L., 649
Employer State, 61
Culture State, 664
Encyclicals, 493, 606-606, 608, 617,
Customs, 649
520, 630, 637
Cynics, 866
Encyclope^sts, 718
Czechoslovakia, 671
Engelke, 618
Czechs, 868
Engles, Friedrich, 60, 61, 64, 66, 105,
Czechoslovak Agrarian Organiza-
107 (n), 138, 161, 162, 164, 168,
tion, 438
171, 181, 808, 809
Entente, Little, 983, 984, 986, 986,
Danilevsky, 842-848, 900
987
D’Annunzio, 669, 677
Equality of all men, 461, 480, 497,
Dante, 680, 686
526
Dantonists, 671
Danzig, 660 Economic, 60
d’Arc, Jeanne, 110, 668 Equalitarian, 60
Darwin, Charles, 786, 787 Europe, Central, 624, 626, 626, 669,
Das Kapital, 42 661
Decembrists, 813, 669 Eastern, 624, 626, 632, 636, 639,
Delvecchlo, 917 641, 660, 661, 663, 664, 667, 669
Western, 619, 624, 626, 626, 668
Democracy, 62, 348, 679, 1060
660, 661
Liberal, 1041-1048, 1063, 1056
European post-war parties, 631-636
Proletarian, 62, 71
Exodus, 617, 631, 642
Despotism, 361, 861
Economic, 346 Factory system, 160
Dialectical Method, 156iF FAI (Federacion Anaquista Iberia),
Diaspora, 623, 630, 631, 639, 642, 339
644, 649, 660, 666 de las Juntas Ofensivas Nacional
Dickens, Charles, 139 Sindicalistas, 724
1070 INDEX
Farinacci, 669 Social-Democratic Labor Party,
Fascism, 65, 92, 94, 337, 347, 351 64, 186
376, 612-514, 618-621, 668, 669, Germanentum, 491, 613-614, 520-622
'
1086 Glasgow Trades Council, 143
Italian, 63, 677-693, 697 Gobineau, Count Arthur de, 773,
Communism dilemma, 627-628 776 779 781
Fascists, 96, 1022 Godwin, William, 111, 117, 366, 367
Federalism, 368, 360, 372 Goebbels, 670, 791, 796
F4d4ration Regionaliste Francaise, Goering, 671, 766
688 Goethe, 793
Feige, Gregory, 623, 637 Gogol, Nicholas, 819
Fessler, Msgr., 610 Grabovsky, Adolf, 926, 927
Feudalism, 1037-1038 Gross, Leo, 926
Fichte, J. G., 666, 667, 767, 786, 823 Grotius, Hugo, 497, 800, 924
Finocchiaro, Aprile, 596 Guerrard, K. L., 648
Foerster, F. W., 947
Forced Labor, 63 Haber, Fritz, 667
Fourier, Charles, 367, 866 Hague Peace Conference, 923, 927,
Fourth International, 96 932
France, 496, 616-617, 623, 631-633, Hancock, Thomas, 398
668, 618, 625, 669, 661, 670, 671, General Haushofer, 756, 760
672 Hayes, C. J., 642, 669 (n)
Franco, Francisco, 376, 489, 614, Hedonists, 356
619, 627-630, 533-634, 696, 722, Hegel, George S. W., 163ff, 666, 667,
724, 729 767, 784-5, 842
Franco-Prussian War, 868 Hegelians, 316
Frankfurter Zeitung, 662 Hegelians, young, 167, 158
Frantz, Constantin, 746 Heine, Heinrich, 661, 741, 767
Frazer, Sir James, 36, 741 Henderson, Arthur, 943
Frederick the Great, 746, 748 Henry VIII, 669
“Free Rhineland”, 697 Heraclitus, 786
Freiearbeiter Union, 383, 386 Hero worship, 614
Fried, Alfred E., 926-926, 932, 947, Herriot, Edouard, 939
948 Herzen, 314, 316, 316, 317, 318, 319,
French political parties, 631-632 320, 321, 818, 828, 832, 866, 866,
Ralliement 616-617 891, 892, 906
Revolution, 11 Iff, 347, 766 Herzl Theodore, 620, 624, 625, 626,
Socialist Movement, 107 627, 629, 631
Hess, Moses, 621, 624
Galicia, 631, 664 Hindenburg, 771
Gandhi, Mohandes, 916, 919, 926, 926, Hinduism, 650
929 Hitler, Adolph, 9, 11, 38, 41, 86, 91,
Garibaldi, 684 92. 374, 376, 491, 613-14, 620-621,
Gasperi, Alcide de, 632 630, 667, 662, 667, 668, 670, 672,
Gay, Francisque, 531 678, 713, 740, 744, 746, 760, 763,
General Strike, 380 766, 771, 772, 77811, 796
Germany, 513-616, 519-622, 627, 534- Hitler Jugend, 747
636, 666, 667, 668, 669, 6^0, 661, Hobbes, Thomas, 668
662, 663, 666, 666, 668, 669, 670, Hobhouse, 282, 283, 284, 286, 286,
671, 672, 673, 764 288, 289, 290, 291
German Republic, 768, 770 Hodza, Dr. Milan, 438, 439
Bishops & Racism, 620-622 Holbach, 162, 163
Post-war elections, 636 Holland, 669, 668, 671, 672
Socialist Movement, 104 Holy Roman Empire, 680, 743, 761
INDEX 1071
Hugenberg, Mr., 764, 761 Italy, 616, 616, 618 620, 627-628,
Huguenots, 110 632-633, 671
Hulme, £. M., 667 Italian Confederation of Christian
Humboldt, 667, 674 Workers, 616
Hume, Joseph, 123 Ivan III, 814, 816, 816
Hungary, 636, 639, 660, 664, 668, 670, Izvestiya, 476
671
Hungarians, 867 Jacob, Paul, 623
Hungarian Insurrection of 1848, Jacobins, 166, 319, 320, 348, 367
864 Jacobin Nationalism, 671
Hunt, Henry, 120, 121 Jacquerie, 110
Huxley Aldous, 920, 930 James I, 499
Huxley, Thomas H., 786, 786 Japan, 672, 766
War with, 66
Idealism, 16311 Jaures, Jean, 173, 922, 928, 941, 1016
Ideals, 649. Jefferson, Thomas, 349, 800
Ideology, 7, 14, 16, 16 Jerusalem, 617
Bourgeois, 64 Jews, 793
Political, 6 Jewish Agency, 627
Socialist, 180ff Congress, 627
Ideological system, 7 Government, 629
Id4e Force, 18 State, 626, 627, 636
Immigration, 633, 634, 636, 638, 639, Joly, Maurice, 783
641 Joseph, Bernard, 642
Independent Labor Party, 968 Journet, Charles, 490, 602, 637
Indians and the Church, 498-499 Junkers, 762
Individual rights and totalitarian “Junta”, 201
State, 619-620, 622-623
Kalijarvi, Thorsten V., 641, 643 (n)
Individualism, democratic, 1046
646, 646 (n), 680 (n>
Industrial Alliant;es, Federation of,
Kalinin, Michael, 80
372
Kant, Immanuel, 164, 492, 741, 767,
Industrial Workers, of the World,
789, 800, 926, 966, 978
382
Kapp-Putsch, 776
Inocent III, Pope, 683
Katkov, 833, 907, 908
IV, Pope, 498
Kautsky, Karl, 34, 64, 66, 161 (n),
Inquisition, 603
168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 888
Institutions, 649
Kerensky, Alexander, 191
Intellectuals, 63, 54
Kiev, 662
Intelligentsia, 21, 64, 66, 313
King Carol, 484
International, 366, 366, 367
Ferdinand, 419, 426
First, 186
Philip, the fair, 668
Second, 186, 187
Kolkhozy, 473, 476
Brigade, 84
Kolhoses, 412, 413
Bureau, 386
Krasinski, 904, 906
Christian Democratic Union, 624
Kravchenko, J. W., 39
Conferece of Syndicalism, 382
Kronstadt Mutiny, 60
Peace Conference, 931, 932
Kropotkin, Peter, 61, 184, 329, 332,
Workman’s Assn., 383, 384
342, 364, 360, 361, 378
Internationalism, 677
Kulaks, 69, 467, 474
lonescu. Take, 432
Kucharzewski, 864
Interparliametary Union, 932
Irkutsk Society, 869 Labor;
Irredentist movement, 669 Chamber, 372, 373,
Irredentism, 642, 662, 663 Movement, aims of, 1069
1072 INDEX
P«rty, Engr., 202 Manifesto of the Communist Phrty,
Syndicates, 372 410
Zionists, 642, 643, 644 Manning, Cardinal, 622
Lagrange, 607-608 Manzoni, 684
“Laissez-faire," 202, 240-242 Marcel, Etienne. 110
Lanunenais, 606, 616 Mariana, Juan de, 499-601
Land reforms, 1013, 1014 Maritain, Jacques, 491-492, 628, 687
Laiwe, Christian, 017, 927, 942, 949 Marx, Karl, 60, 61, 64, 71, 74, 76, 76,
Language, 647ff 79. 86. 98, 104, 106, 109 (n), 188,
Landry, George, 948, 944 147, 149, 161ff, 164, 168, 17Q, 176,
Lappo, 17 177, 179, 203, 380, 338, 349, 364,
Larine, 472 369, 409, 661, 721-722, 767-768,
Las Casas, Bartolomh de, 498 787, 790, 808, 809, 884, 889, 896,
Lassalle, Ferdinand, 162, 180, 182ff, 922, 927
203, 864, 661 Marxispi, 6, 61, 62, 64, 72, 80, 632,
Lateran Treaty, 618 756, 1048-1049, 1060
'
Owen, Robert, 123, 183, 864 641, 666, 668, 668, 667
Poland, 660, 633, 667, 664, 666, 670,
Pacifism, 578, 919 671, 672, 816
Christianli^, 929-930 Polish Insurrection, 833,
Dynamic, 927 Polish Insurrection of 1830-31, 860
Economic, 921 Polish Insurrection of 1863, 860,
Juridical, 928, 924 863
1074 INDEX
Polish Peasant Party, 441, 442 Roman Catholic Church, 661, 680,
Political liberty, 244 682, 684-686
Tactics, 11 Romanov, 66
Politics and religion, 610-12 Rome, 666
Pontifical States, 616 and Jerusalem, 618, 624
Popular Agrarian Government, 418 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 492
Democratic Party in France 631- Rosenberg, Alfred, 667, 671, 796
32 Rosenberg, Alfred, 873, 882
Republican Movement in France, Roucek, Joseph, 646n., 663, 678, 680,
631-632 692, 604
Social Party in Spain, 634 Rousseau, Jean- Jacques, 312, 348,
Popular sovereignty, 244 492, 670, 800, 872, 966
Portugal, 626, 630, 633-36, 618, 671 Russia, 311, 812, 316, 317, 322, 627,
Primo de Rivera, General, 625, 634 621, 631, 636, 639, 664, 660, 663,
Proletarian Consciousness, 176 664, 666, 666, 667, 670, 671
Democracy, 62 Russian Revolution, 381
Dictatorship, 90 Social Democratic Workers, 61,
Revolution, 89 62
Proudhon, 329, 330, 338, 362, 367,
368, 369, 362, 688, 866 Saint Simon, 349, 866, 966
Propaganda, 664, 680 Salazar, Oliveira, 626, 633-535
Protestant Movement, 683 Samarin, 881, 836, 837
The Protocols of the Wise Men of Scheler, Max, 917, 919, 926
Zion, 670, 737-738, 783-784 Schiller, 793, 822
Provisional Government of 1917, 69, Schlegel, 673, 676
466, 479 Separatism, 687
Pugatchev, 312, 476 Czechs and Slovaks, 603
Pushkin, 829, 846, 862, 900 Germany, 697-600
Ireland, 592-694
Rabelais, 866 Italy, 593-696
Race, 651, 662, 666, 667, 671, 672 Macedonia, 607, 608
Condemned by the Church, 619-621 Spain, 694
Radic, Stephen, 427, 428, 429 Yugoslavia, 606-607
Rauschning, Hermann, 491, 763 Serfdom, 19, 311, 316, 1023, 1026-
Reclus, Elise4, 184, 361 1027
Reformation, 486, 668ff Serrano Suner, Ramoq, 489
Regionalism, 587 Sforza, Carlo, 618
Austrian South-Tyrol, 602 Sikorski, Wladyslaw, 966
France, 688-692 Sinn Fein Party, 692
and Separatism, 600-602, 608-611 Slave Economy, 63
Religion, 660 Slavic Congress in Prague, 860
and Politics, 486ff Reciprocity, 846
Revisionists, 629 Union, 861
Revolutions, 63, 766fF Smith, Adam, 160, 171, 241
Revolution of 1917, 61 Social Democrats, 321, 376, 788
Revolution of 1918 in Germany,
Democratic Party, 91, 206, 207,
769
740
French, 316, 766
Social Insurance, 106
Russian, 631, 632, 633, 637, 642
Social Liberty, 239
Revolutionary Gov’t of 1880-31,
Social-Revolutionaries, 67, 68, 67, 73
869
Ricardo, David, 118, 161 Socialism, 16, 64, 79, 103, 200-208,
Risorgimento, 681, 684, 686 314-320, 336, 340, 347, 349, 361,
Robespierre, 766, 767 362, 366, 361, 363, 366, 367, 368,
Rocco, Alfredo, 619-620 369, 371, 372, 379, 797, 808
Rochdale Cooperatives, 226 Socialist, 61, 97
INDEX 1075
Socialist Party in France, 682 611-612, 619, 621, 626-626, 630, 636
Socialist Revolutionary Party. Totalitarian State, 346, 347, 349
190, 461, 464 Trade Unionism, 61, 136 ff, 786
Soloviev, Vladimir, 321, 322, 328, Congress, 142, 368
846, 893, 899 Treitachke, 626, 746, 780
Sombart, Werner, 368, 748 Trotsky, Leon, 63, 67, 68, 69, 81, 86,
Sorel, Georges, 334, 335, 336, 337, 89, 96, 97, 98, 99, 470, 788, 789
338, 776, 789, 1046 Trotskyists, 97, M
Soviet Government, 69, 469 Turkey, 660
Soviets, 68, 61, 71, 78, 74, 874, Government, 619, 622, 631
611, 619 Turks. 867, 1023
Spain, 331, 494-496, 612-614, 619,
626-630, 633-634, 618, 619, 671
USSR (United Socialist States of
Europe), 968
Spanish Civil War, 627-^
Ukraine, 636, 637, 667, 833
Spanish Revolution, 339
Union Internationale d’ Etudes So-
Spengler, Oswald, 789, 790, 906
eialee, 616
Spinou, 163, 236, 312 Union Populaire R4publicaine, 691
St. Augustine, 4M, 490-600
Uinited States of America, The, 12,
St. Isidore, 494
620, 621, 633, 636, 638, 671, 672
Stalin, Joseph, 39, 60, 61, 64, 67, 68,
Utopia, 9, 10, 79, 98,
78, 80, 81, 93, 96, 99, 402, 404, Utopianism, 8, 106, 322
406, 407, 412, 416, 449, 496, 609,
844, 846 Vatican, 505 610, 615, 618, 535
Constitution, 62 Ventura, Father, 606
Stambolisky, Alexander, 411, 418, Vidal y Barraquer, Cardinal, 628
419, 420, 423, 424, 426, 426, 430
Vie Intelleetuelle, La, 632
State Capitalism, 874 Villard, Oswald Garrison, 66
and Church, 486-487 Vitoria, Francisco de, 497
Stem, Alfred, 491 Volkstum, 491
Stem, B. J., 608 Voltaire, 772
Strachey, John, 700 Wallace, Henry A., 492
Strakhov, N., 842, 846, 866 Webb, Beatrice and Sidney, 123,
Sturzo, Luigi, 603 604, 606, 616, 124, 202, 1062
632, 637 Weimar Republic, 746
Stuttgart Institute, 668 Wheeler, G. C., 647
Suez Canal, 661 William IV, (of England), 130
Syndicalism, 200, 336, 338, 364, 367, Willkie, Wendell, 64
369 Wilson, Woodrow, 770
Syndicalists, 333, 338 World War I, 381
World War I and II, 632, 636,
Taine, H. Adolphe, 676, 904
636, 638
Tarle, E., 872, 890, 896
World War H, 63, 84, 87, 98, 99
Thierry, Augustin, 966
Third International, 381, 382 Xenophon, 169
Rome, 818 Yabotinsky, Vladimir, 629, 631
Thoreau, 349 Yehuda, Halevi, 618
Tille, Alexander, 786, 787 Young Republic Party in France, 632
Timovo Constitution, 424 Yugoslavia, 671
Tito, 87 Ziemlia, Wolia, 461
Tiutchev, 848-866 Zimmern, Alfred, n., 642
Tolstoy, Leo, 366, 362, 666, 846, 902, Zionist Congress, 628, 629, 630
918, 920, 930 Zionist Organization, 629, 631, 636,
de Toqueville, 318 640, 642
Totalitarianism, 94, 98, 489, 490, Zulawski, Zyg^munt, 1016